The Turangi Attack: the sentence

As most of us were, I was shocked by the Turangi attack, and moved by the response of the parents of the child.

The attacker was sentenced today to ten years in prison, after pleading guilty. He is a sixteen year old boy who, according to the Herald:

had come from a troubled, violent background and dysfunctional family and was drunk at the time of the attack and could recall little of it.

He had been bullied, abused, attempted suicide and began taking drugs and alcohol from an early age, the court heard.

The families of both of his parents had been involved in gangs.

How is it that we can tolerate a system that permits such gaps in our social fabric to let fall youth in this way? The Right will blame the parents and youth, and pontificate about personal responsibility and retribution. My side of the debate too often takes the simplistic structural explanation. I do stand somewhere towards the latter - we are capable of making decisions and choices, but in circumstances often, even usually, not of our own making, and frequently heavily loaded against us (ask the workers in Affco about this, where management wants to impose utterly their will over the working lives of employees). Societies that tolerate inequality as an acceptable outcome, that accept, even promote, unemployment as a "good', that argue solely from the perspective of personal responsibility and, like Pontius Pilate, wash their hands of any collective responsibility for who and what we are, create the perfect breeding ground for the circumstances that gave rise to the Turangi events.

I am glad that justice has been done in an appalling case, but hope that most of us think beyond the narrow terms of retribution and blame that some will adopt.

Mr Twyford on the right track on the ports: where is the Mayor? Where is Mr Shearer?

http://blog.labour.org.nz/2012/02/29/the-mayor-the-port-and-the-wharfies/

The mayor has an ever-narrowing window of opportunity to act (especially if he wants to be re-elected).

Be careful of what you wish for: on the anti-union movement in NZ

I've written this before, but it's worth repeating. Unions were created of Capitalism, for Capitalism, with purposes driven by a contradiction - on the one hand, to provide voice and improved conditions for workers, and, on the other, channel and mute what would otherwise be untrammelled worker discontent. The two dimensions are in many ways the two sides of one coin.

When you promote the destruction of unions, as is the case for much of contemporary NZ management and the current government, you signal an acceptance of two things (in particular). The first is unitary managerial power; the second is the transfer of opposition to that power into other behaviours - for example, sabotage, disruptive labour mobility (even migration), often poor productivity, and eventually, the transfer of industrial tensions into the wider political sphere. This is what history shows repeatedly, and I see no reason for it not to happen again.

I don't expect most of the Right to understand this argument, but, in time, the consequences of short sightedness will become clear.

The Affco Lock-out: management as bully

Affco have made their reasons for a lock-out clear. They want absolute control of what happens in their workplaces - no workforce voice, no unions, nothing but managerial prerogative running riot. In saying this, they are also saying that they dislike the "rule of law", for they are complaining that the union is using the law, surely a process at the heart of Capitalism, to further their interests. They want the union to forego legal action and always, without exception, settle within "internal" processes.

Affco management is a bully, and reflects, as does the ports dispute, a growing desire on the part of NZ management to work without any constraints from the hoi-polloi on the shop-floor. This is feudalism without the reciprocity, a return to nineteenth century absolute industrial power, for which there should be no toleration in a civilised country. And be very clear, actions such as that taken by the government in the Hobbit case encourage such behaviour.

The Aussie advert was an accident?

I have no doubt that Mr Gibson found excellent reasons for not fronting the media about the ports' search for non-union contract labour in Australia. The explanation that it was an accident that the advert was placed over the water is, as Mr Parsloe notes, nonsense (or, at best, a sign of very poor control of vital issues by management). And he's also explained the NZ advert as "testing the water" for a contracting option, an equally nonsensical explanation (either he's looking for union-breaking staff, or he's treating potential applicants with contumely - apply but we're not really serious about recruiting?)

This is a mis-step by the ports' management, one of a series from their initiation of a campaign to sack its workforce and obtain a compliant, cowed alternative.

An excellent video from MUNZ and the CTU (and a note on Rod Oram)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsm90fuXdM&feature=youtu.be

Good to see.

And, whilst I respect Rod Oram, his commentary on Morning Report today fell far short of the quality of interpretation that I have come to expect from him. In particular, he needs to understand the history of ER change in ports in recent years far better than he does. He did a disservice to many people this morning when he simply blamed regional government for the current ER problems and the lack of change in the past.

Gordon Campbell touches a chord

He writes today:

The fact that these miserable and miserly reform policies apparently enjoy wide public approval should be taken as a sign of how bitterly depressed New Zealand has become. We are being invited to turn on each other.

He puts well a feeling that grows in me - is this the type of society that we collectively wish to see in NZ?

Labour reviews itself

An election review is not a bad thing, especially if the r&f of the party are included in a serious manner. Clearly, the party is challenged - in terms of membership, funding and structure, It needs a revamp. And I have time for some of the team included in the review.

What must be recognised, too, is that an organisational review is at best one step in the political renovation of the party. That renovation is currently in the opaque area between the election and its consequences, and Mr Shearer's silence in support of his new leadership style (as discussed in multiple newspaper reports over the last weeks). There is low level ferment about what the political direction of labour should be - it is reducible, unfortunately, to a version of Blairism, on the one hand, and a more radical Social Democracy, marked less by a coherent political position and more by positions on particular issues - Crafar and FDI, the Ports dispute, alternative economic strategies, employment relations legislation, for example. The latter tradition is floundering for a unifying political framework - a floundering paralleled elsewhere in the Social Democratic world.

I am concerned that the organisational review will be completed and signed off, and that a repackaged Blairism will emerge as its necessary political outcome. Driving that concern is a growing sense that the parliamentary caucus no longer has what I would understand as an active Left. Its leadership is safely centrist, and the rest of the caucus displays little capacity for radical thinking and debate. And the distance between the caucus and the Left in the party membership is palpable. I may be wrong in this, and I hope I am, but my church seems at present to be singularly monotheistic.

The jobs will come: myths on the Right

There is a lot of discussion around about the Richardson Mark II welfare cuts brought through by Mr Key and his policy for inequality. We should be very clear about the relationship between the cuts and the type of labour market sought by the government. The idea is essentially very simple. We must push people out of benefits into whatever labour market exists. It does not matter what the LM dynamics are, for a market is, by definition, flexible enough to adjust to new inputs. And what is the consequent adjustment - the price of labour should fall as demand for work grows. In this thinking, the jobs are there; the question is simply the price at which labour is offered. And so the downward spiral promoted by this government goes. Casualisation, 90 day measures, flexible working where the down-time is the responsibility of the employee, low pay, fewer training inputs - so the story goes. We are inexorably falling into the downward spiral of the "race to the bottom", in which we benchmark our jobs and rewards against China, rather than the OECD tradition. The brave new world of Mr Key has a lot more to do with the Chinese model than the simple Crafar purchase

Peter Cullen on the Ports

Peter Cullen was good on the radio this morning. I particularly liked his direct analysis of what the ports are up to - the wholesale scrapping of its workforce and its replacement (by a compliant contracted workforce). And he put the acid firmly on Mayor Brown and the Labour Party - will they stand aside when such a measure is pushed through? Labour MPs have been on the pickets, which I applaud. I understand that Mr Shearer is watching the issue closely, but, as one colleague put it, this is not ornithology.

MY own reading of employment law is that if MUNZ can be shown to have asked explicitly for a blacking of POAL, they might be open to legal action. If, however, agencies elsewhere engage in action, and MUNZ cannot be shown to have been involved in the instigation of that action, then legal action will fail. As I have written before, the fact that management is anywhere near such thinking speaks volumes about their failure as managers.

Talleys and Contradictions

It is a strange old world. Talleys is inveterately anti-union (remember Open Cheese?) and is now, via its AFFCO holdings, engaged in a lock-out of 750 workers, designed to force down wages and conditions. Meanwhile, it is Talleys taking on Sanfords and others around the poor conditions in the contract fishing fleet operating in NZ waters. One must assume that Talleys have a serious ulterior motive in their sudden love of better conditions at sea, but not on land.

Forked tongues: Government agencies and cuts

I've just been listening to a Housing NZ minion trying to explain how a 24/7 phone system (introduced to allow reduced costs, redundancies and reduction in in face-to-face communication) is in fact an improvement. This is trying to square the circle in impossible circumstances, and she sounded like someone given the poisoned chalice. No wonder the Minister cowered behind the "operational issue" excuse and would not front. Again and again, the government says one thing, but the reality is the opposite. The real effect of the cuts that are hacking through the public sector is dramatically reduced service and increasingly stressed staff. Once again, national show that its only interest is the well-being of their client affluent group - the rest of us can go hang.

When the market doesn't work, regulate: National and ACC

Concern is growing that the Government is preparing to shut the Accident Compensation Corporation out of work injury cover to enable private insurers to compete in the market.

Their mates can't maker the buck that they feel that they should, so National is, apparently, looking at "constructing" the market until it meets private capital's needs. Either way, levies are likely to rise in order to give the private sector the space to make a profit. In other words, a system that works well will be messed around until it is configured for private sector interests, and we pay higher levies.

MUNZ and the Dingo (again)

Yesterday I noted the managed release by the Voice of National of an anti-MUNZ video. Today we hear of barbecues boung mistreated and other "vandalism" as a run-up to the current strike. As I said yesterday, I expect to see a great deal more of this propaganda from the employers as they seek to divert attention from their mismanagement of the Ports employment relations, and attempt to portray MUNZ as the Germans were portrayed in Leuven. The serious point here is the complete breakdown of trust in the ER in the Port - trust that is extraordinarily difficult to re-build. Mr Gibson and his team have done great damage in a situation in which there was some hope of improvement in the ER climate.

Meanwhile, international solidarity is slotting in as a result of the dispute. Ships are being diverted as a result of managment's intransigence. This international action is not illegal as its origins lie offshore. It is not a secondary action, as Mr Gibson asserts. This need never have happened. I wonder how management can face itself in the morning mirror.

You know the bosses are worried...

.....when the Voice of National is required to peddle anti-union propaganda against MUNZ. The video purporting to show a bullied and racially-abused non-union worker in POAL is an expected ploy - next, it will be "it was MUNZ, not the dingo".

On fishing and slavery in NZ waters

The Swain Report on labour condition on contract vessels fishing in NZ waters has been delivered to ministers. Now we will wait with interest to see which side of the debate they fall in terms of action. For, from this government's perspective, the labour conditions will be less important than the clash between different fractions of Capital in the fishing sector, one in favour of exploitation, the other in favour of local crewing and protection. It will be interesting which side this government takes!

Ministers uncaring about job losses?: too right

Mr Armstrong is on the ball on public sector job losses, The government is positively crowing about them, full of hubris in their cutting zeal, without any expression of concern about the consequences for families and experience. So they support casualisation in the ports, or mass job loss in Air New Zealand. For these are only the little, irrelevant people - people who are dispensable, who don't matter, who can be flicked on in support of an ideology of inequality. Far better to cuddle up with business and the "right" sort of people - people who share the ideology, who have their kids in the private sector schools, who like to have Omaha baches, who understand the finer points of Antoine's cuisine, who know where in Hawaii to get the best seafood.

It will rebound on this government in time, but only after it has done immense damage to our economy and society

Sir Douglas lied to investors..

......is the verdict. So should he lose his knighthood? Here we have an elder statesman of the National Party, found guilty of making untrue statements in financial dealings in which people lost lots of money. What should happen?

I guess that one argument is that the public shame is enough punishment. But the counterpoint is that his knighthood is a symbol of high respect and service, both tarnished by this conviction. I am not a particularly vindictive person, but the question has been asked, and it will be interesting to hear Mr Key's answer!

Resisting China while hammering MFAT

It is a wonderful juxtaposition. Mr McCully will have to call on MFAT's experience and professionalism to dowse down the fires that will inevitably be caused in Beijing by the release of his e-mails, especially the one about resisting China. Meanwhile, Mr Allen is putting a brave face on the "challenging" morale impacts of the major cuts imposed on the staff, whilst parrotting hopefully the government's story that less means more and that "flexibility" on fewer rations means a better service. Cutting MFAT in this way is, of course, a signal that this government understands only money, and not the value of the service that money supports. It signals a further slippage into banana republic status, a view held by many experienced diplomatic staff. Mr McCully, of course, will not give a toss about this.

More on the Ports

News filters out from the inner corridors of the Supercity that at recent meetings around the ports dispute, the irritation of both the CTU and the Labour Party with the Supercity's leadership, both Mayor and CEO, has been made very clear. I understand that Mayor Brown is riled by this, but what can he expect? The revelations in the SST, especially about "egg breaking" and "brinkmanship", cast the Mayor and CEO in a very bad light. The people who helped Mayor Brown to power have every right to make their views known to him. I now think that the window of opportunity open for him to do the right thing is narrowing rapidly. He faces explicit rejection by both the union and Labour Party rank-and-file in future election campaigns. Mr Twyford's recent press release about the revenue expectations attached to the port should have been a strong heads-up. Michael Barnett must be a happy chappy at the moment.

Folding at the first challenge: The Maori Party and Section 9

The Maori Party have swung in behind National in the expected accommodation around Section 9. Listening to the explanation offered on Morning Report by Mr Sharples for this caving, the bankruptcy of the Maori Party as an independent voice for Maori became painfully clear. In particular, the rationale that the Maori Party did not stand on a point of principle because National has the votes is laughable. The quicker the party fades into history, the better.

When a CEO and board fail: the ports and a three week strike

A CEO and board that take their operations into a three weeks' strike in support of the wholesale sacking of its workforce are morally and commercially bankrupt.
This is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the impasse imposed on the CEA negotiations by Mr Gibson as he seeks to meet his board's and Mayor Brown's ridiculous expectations of a 12% return on the asset. It is difficult to imagine a worse mess than the one created by management in the ports. I would be the first to agree that in some ways, MUNZ needs to take a hard look at some of st own internal issues, but in this case, MUNZ is the aggrieved party fair and square. Mr Gibson should be relieved of his position and the board be given a good shake-up by Mayor Brown.

And, as I have noted before, a failure on the part of Mayor Brown on this front will condemn him to the status of a one-term mayor.

MUNZ gains international support in port dispute

It is exercising the Right that MUNZ may gain international support from fellow portworkers and others as an aspect of the incomprehensible dispute being prolonged by POAL's intransigent management (and, it would seem, the complicit Mayor). Why should they be surprised? When Peter Jackson wanted to downgrade the labour standards of his employees (sorry, contractors), he engaged with external forces (in this case, two multinational corporations in the film sector) and the Right was perfectly happy to see working conditions sold out to that trans-national alliance. Sauce for the goose etc.

I see also that the H&S record at Tauranga is under scrutiny as a consequence of the claims made about contracting down there. It will be interesting to see how those data scrub up.

Touting for Business: The Private Health Care Sector and our Two-Speed Society

I see that the CEO of the Health Funds Association is touting for business in today's Herald. He is hectoring our low paid economy to increase private funding of health care (which, surprise surprise, helps his members) with the threat that the public system will never, ever be able to provide adequate health coverage. There is no doubt that public sector health provision is a challenging question, but it is galling to see the profit-makers in health simultaneously do down public provision and promote their own products in an economy in which inequality is rife and growing, and the numbers able to afford private health provision are declining. One would hope that the government would be able to respond aggressively to such arguments,. but, of course, we have a government comfortable with growing inequality and more than happy to see public provision privatised. They talk of a two-speed Australian economy. We should be talking of a two-speed NZ society - the haves and the have-nots.

Roger Waters

Maybe I am now too old for outright cynicism, but I went to Roger Waters' concert in the vector Arena last might, and was, almost literally, blown away by the sheer spectacle of the event, and its political message. Pink Floyd was never a favourite band of mine. It became over-weighty and sententious and not a little ponderous (in my humble view).  Yet the explicit politics of rights and struggle in last night's show was welcome, even if, as I suspect, many of the younger people there missed many of the allusions (though maybe I am wrong - here's hoping). And the effects were magnificent, as was the quality of the musicianship.

And I loved the pig.

Mr Rudd and pique

Australian politics is a bear-pit. The Rudd challenge, precipitated by his resignation last night, was expected, and goes to show how little the internal politics in the ALP care for the wider Australian population. Be very clear. This is an attempted coup in retaliation for that which ousted Mr Rudd two years ago. It is a question of ego, first and foremost, on the part of a highly-intelligent but flawed character, who commands respect, but little liking. He may win, but in doing so, may well precipitate the sort of faction fighting that paralyses a party, and provides a fillip to Mr Abbott that he needs very much. I was in Oz recently, talking with old friends in the Catholic Right in NSW (a tradition with which I have little sympathy, I should note) and I sensed the ploughshares being beaten in swords. This could well be a bloody one.

The Voice of National and a sense of perspective

The Voice of National is fulminating against the Left in relation to one Peter Gleick's (apparent) admission that he took some documents from somewhere ( a bit like someone in or around National took some documents and they ended up in a book - but I digress). Methinks he rants too much. The Right of my day eschewed such petty actions. They stole countries, with the aid of compliant militaries and covert operations, and subjected their populations to bitter repression. So whinge as you may, Voice of National, but the mote in the eye is pretty monstrous.

The Crafar Saga: no early solution and an opportunity

The news that there will be an appeal by the NZ-based bidders  against the High Court judgement in relation to the competence criterion as applied to the overseas bid  means that the legal process around the Crafar farms will continue. The potential for the legal questions going on for some time means that the politics of the Crafar sale, and of the wider question of FDI, will continue to be news, an outcome not to the government's liking. It means that any move by government will be swooped upon by Labour, NZ First and the Greens, eager to score points at the expense of a pro-business and pro-FDI party, increasingly out-of-step on this issue with the NZ population.

It adds up to a headache for government, but an opportunity for NZ to think through its position on FDI in a more transparent way. Historically, the policy position has been determined by a closed group of policy-makers and politicians. most wedded to a very orthodox economics. The debate is now widening its audience, and the orthodoxy is no longer so powerful.

My own view is quite clear. FDI is not necessarily bad, and to prevent it may well produce serious adverse effects. It must, however, be managed strategically by any nation-state. Thus, for example, China opened its economy on the basis of joint ventures, and blocked for many years wholly foreign-owned enterprises. Strategic assets - land, infrastructure, utilities etc - should not, in general, be overseas owned. Elsewhere, I am more open to joint ventures and investment. It is perfectly easy to make such regulations clear and operational, so all domestic and external interests are aware of our position. I can hear the chorus - but what about our commitments to the WTO and other nations with which we have bilateral or multilateral arrangements? My response is that nation states can renegotiate any arrangements. No treaty or commitment is, or can be expected to be,  binding for all time.

Let the public debate begin.

Matt McCarten

Very sad news about Matt's continuing health issues in today's paper. There are some of my persuasion who find him infuriating, and there is no doubt that he is something of an iconoclast. Yet he is a creative, committed and thoroughly decent man, who has given somuch to the labour movement and wider politics of NZ. I wish him well.

Mr Joyce and Tertiary: the dangers of simplistic thinking

The notion that Mr Joyce has ideas about MED, tertiary provision and innovation is very worrying.  Mr Joyce has shown himself to have ideas of one sort only - those that commit Government to the slavish support of business interests. The distance that exists between innovation, creativity and education and those interests is unknown territory for Mr Joyce, who seems to be one of Nature's very elemental thinkers. My suggestion is that Mr Joyce thinks twice, and perhaps consults with people who know something about these areas, before he takes forward any thoughts that he might have. Above all. in a skill-short global economy, these are areas in which people are very mobile. Ill-considered and simplistic interventions can have long term adverse impacts that are difficult to reverse.

The Turn of the Screw: Mr Twyford increases the pressure on Mayor Brown

This is a recent Press Release from Mr Twyford, who is also and necessarily exercised by the level of returns that are being demanded by Mr Brown's Council of the ports:

Auckland Council demand on ports unrealistic

Labour’s Transport spokesperson Phil Twyford says Auckland Council is dreaming if it thinks it can squeeze a 12 per cent return out of the Ports of Auckland.

Responding to comments from Auckland Council Investment Company (ACIL) defending Auckland Council’s controversial demand that POA deliver a 12 per cent return on capital, Phil Twyford said: “No other port in New Zealand is delivering a return like that.

“Very few companies at all are returning 12 per cent, and even fewer --- if any --- in the transport and logistics industry.

“Doubling Auckland’s return to 12 per cent is completely unrealistic and has sparked a costly and damaging industrial dispute on Auckland wharves as the port company tries to increase its profits by cutting labour costs,” Phil Twyford said.

“The Ports of Auckland return on capital is only marginally behind the Ports of Tauranga, which is often touted as a great success story.

“Auckland Council should rethink its demand, and instead work to try to end the current dispute,” Phil Twyford said.

Serco Stuffs up at Mount Eden: fined $150k

I belong to the tradition that believes that the taking of a citizen's liberty should be the role and responsibility of the state. It should not be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis. So I opposed the Serco Mount Eden contract. And, it seems, for good reasons. They have stuffed up and have, consequently, been "fined" by the Corrections department. It was a bad idea, in principle and practice, and is being shown to be so.

Stephen Fry and Cultural Cringe

I quite like Stephen Fry, particularly as, in an earlier life, he went down for credit card fraud in a prison in a village I know well in the UK, the delightfully-named Pucklechurch (a name some believe is derived from "pulcher", the Latin for beautiful, for it has a beautiful 13th Century church with both Norman origins and later additions, and an equally lovely 'ring of six'). Anyway, he is multiply-talented, very funny and no fool at all when it comes to the Digital Age.

However, I am somewhat baffled by our knee-jerk response to a UK actor's views of our broadband provision. Many of us have been fulminating (with longer and better justification) about both price and quality of broadband service. Is it only to be taken seriously when a visiting actor (however talented) tweets? Should we expect the government's asset sales' strategy to be revisited if Ian McKellen questions it?  Would the question of inequality on NZ be addressed the more quickly if AB de Villiers raised it as a concern? Would we get the Rail Tunnel in Auckland if Roger Waters so suggested? Are we not just a little vulnerable here to that cultural cringe whereby any foreign person of note (taken very broadly) becomes somehow vested in the right to direct our national decision-making?

John Drinnan on National's business agenda

Mr Drinnan picks up the sub rosa deal done by Minister Coleman to allow a dilution of NZ music content on Kiwi FM. Mr Joyce, that most disinterested of ministers, is reported to have been involved in the deal. The acid in the article comes at the end:

Deals involving public assets and tradeoffs in regulatory oversight have become commonplace under this Government.

Warner Bros was given $20 million and industrial law changes to avert threats to move The Hobbit offshore.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce is currently negotiating a deal to allow more pokie machines at SkyCity casino in return for building a national conference centre, estimated to cost $350 million.

And in 2009 the Government loaned $44 million to MediaWorks so it could keep its radio frequencies.

If your are poor, or unemployed, or a public sector employee, you can, as far as this government is concerned, whistle. If you a business mate, the door is open to advantageous deals and a good bit of mutual back-slapping. Government for (some of) the people, indeed.

Petricevic says sorry to investors (Herald)

O gosh, well that's all right, then.

The Tamaki Evictions

Two forces are at work in the evictions. The one is a constant pressure from the "nicer" end of town, which has loathed for many years the idea that "poor" people should live on what is considered prime land and the birthright of the "nice". This is a pressure increased by the current government. Second, there is the rationale that people should not expect to live in state housing for beyond a certain (undefined) period. The first rationale is simple class prejudice. Those who know the housing area know all about this, and are not surprised. The second in more complex. I happen to believe that, in certain circumstances, there should be no general right to permanence in state housing. That situation would require several conditions - better average incomes, a far better intermediate housing market, a far more comprehensive housing market, for example. Until such circumstances arise, many families only hope of decent accommodation will lie with the state and its housing provision. That is why I believe that the government should be doing far more in this area, rather than re-arranging deckchairs to suit Auckland's bourgeois prejudices.

Enter the Greens?: goading Labour?

As others, I have noted the upbeat style of the Greens (since a relatively successful election campaign) and the contrast with a tentative, inchoate Labour Party, still to emerge in whatever form desired by Mr Shearer, and lacking a public persona that grabs attention. I don't share the view that we are seeing an inevitable and permanent shift in forces between Labour and the Greens, but I do see in the Greens a confidence and a political space that allows them to pillory the government in a way that Labour finds difficult at present.

As I have argued before, the tendency seems to be that Labour is competing for the "responsible" vote, a notional Centre supposedly spooked by radical thinking. I can understand the thinking behind this, but don't agree with it. I believe that Opposition is the time for radical thinking and debate, not conservatism. It is a time to build the activist rank-and-file that will canvas next time. It is a time to build policies that deny the neo-liberal orthodoxy expounded by National. It looks like a time in which we should be putting the acid on people like Mayor Brown, too.

Perhaps the good thing about the current focus on the Greens is that it will cause Labour to stir its stumps and become both visible and challenging. The "wait and see" game can be played only for so long before Labour looks tired and ineffectual. Or maybe we should be encouraging Mr Shearer and his team to eat a little more red meat......

Mayor Brown nailed on Ports: a recipe for a one-term mayor.

I worked for the election of Mayor Brown, as did so many of my friends, many of whom are in the union movement. If this report is true, and a doubling of return has been demanded over a five year period, then Mayor Brown is substantially culpable for the escalation of what should have been a normal CEA negotiation into a contracting-out crisis.

Moreover, the transcript of the meeting makes it clear that Mayor Brown and his egg-breaking CEO are in cahoots on the "brinkmanship" model for the Ports - in employment relations terms a quite irresponsible model.

I write in all seriousness. Mayor Brown will forfeit a vast layer of his popular support if he is seen to continue on this track. This is a point of principle. He is, to all intents and purposes, condoning and encouraging union-bashing. If he wants to be re-elected, he should think again.

Why doesn't the Government appeal the Crafar decision?

The government, we are told, will not appeal the Crafar decision because of time concerns. I mentioned this to someone who should know yesterday, who replied that this is nonsense. The Court of Appeal would, I was told, be able to move as swiftly as the High Court on this matter if so energised. The suspicion is that it is not a question of the time, but the fact that an appeal would fail, for the decision has been made by a respected judge, well-versed in things commercial and with a pithy and intelligent insight into such matters. The point is that the OIO seems to have been stuffing up since 2005, and needed only one skillful legal challenge to be shown at fault.

We now need a serious re-appraisal of what we see as strategic and subject to constraint in terms of overseas ownership. If the counterfactual test is correct (and its makes sense to me) then it should be backed up by a robust policy on Foreign ownership, a view that has been lacking for years.

On the Housing Crisis

I have been close to the housing issue on and off for years, and am constantly challenged by the lack of analysis that is provided for it. The Right is particularly bad - open up more land, they trumpet, eyes glistening with lust at the prospects of new, upmarket sub-divisions, and with nary a thought for low-income families. For that is part of the real problem - in a low-income economy, inequality has a perverting effect on the housing market and the distribution of housing stock. The point is that, in general high inequality and reduced, liveable housing solutions require state intervention -  in terms of state build and, often, serious regulation of the housing market. Private sector solutions will inevitable service high-end, high return interests first; they will not consider the low-end unless encouraged by the state. I have argued for years for a better state-driven policy and intervention into housing; neither ruling clan is willing to grasp this nettle. Until a government does, the crisis will continue.

Are NZers getting in their own way? (Paul Holmes)

That great and distinguished thinker, Master Holmes, has emerged from his cloister once again to ask the rhetorical question noted above. A product of many years of deep thinking, coupled with a diet of spelt and water, the question is, of course, worthy of consideration.

Its meaning is clear, and is one that the Neo-liberals have posed for years. NZers (thought of as NZ civil society) are unable to chart the correct course for the nation that will lead them to enlightenment. They are, because of shortfalls in intellect, political sophistication, and ethnic division, prone to fall away from the path of righteousness. Happily, great thinkers - Mr Holmes, Alan Gibbs, Don Brash and others - understand this capacity for self-harm, and are willing to sacrifice themselves to keep us on the divine path. The simplest solution would be to hand over power to the great masters, who, in full recognition of what is good and right, would create a new and successful order in NZ. In the absence of our compliance with such a generous offer, the great must make do with a collaboration with a lesser order of being (the National party and allies) who will, as a proxy for the great thinkers, undermine democracy and reorder the economy in line with enlightened thought.

Let hosannas ring out as our due and proper future is revealed.

It's the old "keeping the powder dry" strategy: On Labour's Great Silence

I am being a little unfair, of course. Labour has scrubbed up somewhat on the asset sales front, and somewhat sotto voce on the Crafar case, but I understand that Mr Shearer is adopting a 'wait and see' model based on the expectation that National is quite capable of doing damage to itself in its current careering around the political stage. There is a logic to this. National is indeed in foot-shooting mode, and were it not for Mr Mallard, their horizon would be marked by a swathe of political Renas.

That said, a time must come for the "new" Labour to stand up and say something positive about where it wants to take NZ. It cannot feed forever on the living carcase that is National. And there is an imperative for Mr Shearer in this. He has to prove himself a potential winner in 2015, and that will require him to appear far and wide as the bearer of good news and a better future. I hear that what that good news and better future might look like has still a long way to go in its gestation. As elsewhere, NZ social democracy has problems in distancing itself from the orthodox crisis management beloved of, for example, the Troika in Greece. Mr Parker's comments last week on the government's economic forecasts trod a centrist and 'safe' path very carefully, eschewing any radical utterance and very much posing Labour as the better manager of the economy. Mr Shearer's team seems to be adopting a conservative approach to the next three years, rather than building on some of the more radical and challenging policies that began to emerge (belatedly) under Mr Goff. Here's hoping that a more radical current begins to surface soon in those discussions.

Richard Taylor: New Zealander of the Year?

Weta does excellent work, but no-one with any sense of decency or employment relations perspective can ignore the rabble-rousing, anti-union and anti-decent conditions role played by Richard Taylor in "The Hobbit" dispute. For many of us, this taints this award.

Mr Mallard and the Honourable Thing

I posted yesterday on the political judgement shown by Mr Mallard in the ticket sales saga. I watched him on TV last night and also heard him on the radio as he attempted to salvage the political fall-out of a poor decision. As I watched the TV interview, I felt a very human twinge of pity for the man. He looked and sounded stressed, even ill. He was doing an imposed public mea culpa even though he clearly felt that it was not necessarily needed. He knew that, at a time when National is staggering, such antics by him are a political gift to the government. He knew his judgement had been tested, and found lacking.

Reading the coverage, and thinking about the interviews, I believe that Mr Mallard should, in due course, signal that he's thinking about his future. He has been a stalwart of the LP for a generation. He was a good minister (on the whole) when in power. He's been an excellent constituency MP. Perhaps it is now time for him to go and do the work on education of which he often speaks, and to which he is deeply committed. New pastures beckon, and he should take up that opportunity.

Time for Mr Brown to act on the Ports Dispute

The calls for a resolution of the Ports dispute are growing. If you put to one side suggestions of the numpties such as the Mr Silva of the Importers Institute (who and what are these self-aggrandizing business associations that pontificate in such a self-interested way, I wonder), it is interesting to see the emergence of a heavyweight union-transport sector-community group (the Lorimer, Swny, Braid, Kelly alliance) calling for some common sense and a new vision for the Ports. This is an ideal opening for Mr Brown to step into and act in a constructive manner, perhaps via a stronger ARH intervention.

I also hear that Mr Gibson should think carefully about the value he's gaining from the special advice he is receiving about how to run the dispute.

Haruspicy and the National Leadership

I love the idea of the "guess" in economic policy. Not a "best guess", or an "informed guess", but the outright lick-the-finger-and-stick-it-in-the-air take-a-punt guess.Mr Key has tried to salvage the Muddle Men approach adopted by Mr English, but in vain. The asset sales prognosis would be better served by the adoption of entrail-reading, if Mr English is to be believed. Of course, National does have detailed analyses, which they will not share for two reasons. One is commercial sensitivity; the other is that the analyses will paint a bleaker picture than the "guess", and the political fall-out would be all the greater.

Politically, the impact of "guesses" is to exacerbate a very difficult few weeks for National. Adding to this this morning, Mr Coleman waffled away on Morning Report. trying to explain why cuts in Defence funding make us better defended. In practice, all he showed is that state sector CEOs are trying to cut an ever-reduced cloth better, and have reached the end of their design skills. Defence cuts and "reorganisation" are cutting into bone, as my contacts in the NZDF suggest. And as I type, Mr English's insights into the impact of larger classes is being dissected critically on the radio.It's going to be a rough three years for National.

John Banks: Leader

The hordes will, of course, now flock to join ACT. Mr Banks will dispense with this pointy-head theory stuff and all that concern about liberty and the individual. He will replace it with a red-neck, chauvinist social conservatism, leavened with his own unique brand of battiness. The neo-liberal Right must be watching the end of ACT and the Business Roundtable in horror, as their two vehicles of beauty and truth enter terminal decline. How they must long for Mr Hide and his knock-about Mussolini impersonations.

Shippers on the Ports Dispute

A very interesting interview on Morning Report with the shippers'  organisation. They want the ports dispute settled, and now. Reading between the lines, ongoing disputation, followed possibly by lengthy court action, picketing etc (in the case of contracting out) and the very real threat of international boycotts is not an acceptable outcome. I read the interview as a shot across Mr Gibson's (and the POAL board's) bow - a warning that he has to get real and settle a new CEA. I also read the Council's thinking to be the same.

I see that the ITF and the IUF are already building international campaigns on the ports issue, and the CTU is putting serious resources into the campaign. I'm beginning to wonder if Mr Gibson will be in post in a year's time.

Mr Mallard

Its' a question of judgement, and, in this case, the lack of it. Personally, I put it down to too much cycling.

Blinded by the light: Government in the Crafar Spotlight

John Armstrong calls it a rout of huge proportions and a full-blown political disaster. So it is. Wherever government goes now in the Crafar matter, the spotlight will be on them. And at a a time when the SOE sales issue is also blowing up, and you've got the McElrea issue running too, it adds up to a political minefield in the first month of the new parliament. The chorus that Mr Key's lot simply applied the 2005 rules does little to avert the current political impasse.

The decision is also interesting in many other contexts. It highlights the decision to sell the Crafar farms as a single lot, a decision with serious consequences. It shines alight on the the OIO and its activities and secrecy, with consequences that are still to be worked through. Above all, it focuses our attention on the sale of strategic land assets in a time in which food security is a major global issue. This is an issue that will not subside, and will be given greater profile by the Crafar case. Tangled webs!

The Crafar Decision: Government stuffs up

This is a fascinating court decision. The government has been told to go back and make a fresh assessment of the decision to allow the sale of the Crafar operations to Chinese interests, becauseof the errors made in assessing the benefits for NZ of the particular overseas investment involved. The first ground for challenge - the lack of specific dairy experience - failed. The second is made out inter alia because the Ministers misdirected themselves in law.

This may, of course, be only a temporary hiccup, yet the Court has been willing to contemplate the collapse of the Milk NZ purchase as a result of its decision, that is, the point of law is sufficiently important to contemplate such an outcome.

It is a government stuff-up, and not a little embarrassing. We'll see what ensues!

Apple move on Foxconn and contractors, but too late.

Facing a growing scandal over the working conditions of those making its best-selling gadgets, Apple has called in assessors from the same organisation that was set up to stamp out sweatshops in the clothing industry more than a decade ago.

The move is an admission that Apple's own system of monitoring suppliers has failed to stamp out abuses, and that the negative publicity surrounding its Chinese operations threatens to cause a consumer backlash against its products.

But campaigners for Chinese workers immediately criticised the company for conducting a public relations exercise instead of actually alleviating the long hours, harsh management and safety problems that have driven some workers to suicide and led to fatal accidents at plants.

The Herald

Too little, too late. Apple have fluffed on this issue too long, arguing that their own standards were good enough and tacitly supporting Foxconn. People like me, who have been watching this develop for years, knew that once Apple failed to move promptly, when it did, as it surely would have to, it would be caught doing too little too late. Apple is a brand now compromised by a willingness to support exploitative ER in its contracted assembly plants. It will have to do a great deal before that taint is removed. Mr Jobs may have been a design genius. but his stewardship of the company clearly included great holes

The Partial Privatisation Mess

The Section 9 issue is but one of the crises marking the partial privatisation of state assets imposed by National. Business commentators see no point in the process. External investors are spooked by the Section 9 issue. The question of new capital is now a major problem - who will deliver new capital in the proposed arrangement and what will that mean for the state's shareholding? And, then, what will that mean for the returns and expectations of the private sector investors?

This is a case, once more, of a policy ill-thought-through and clouded by Mr Key's unique use of language and the ubiquitous flying by the seat of his pants. Am I the only listener who leaves one of his interviews wondering what he has said (and why)?

Pontius Pilate versus Mojo

The Speaker has chosen to stand behind formal protections to avoid taking up the principled issue of funding for MPs with disabilities. I do not doubt that technically the Speaker is correct in his interpretation why he cannot fund the note-taking, but if ever there was a need for problem-solving that showed how, not just this MP, but other with disabilities will be catered for, this is it. Standing behind a formal interpretation, rather than moving to ensure a structural, not personal, solution, should be Parliament's (and the Speaker's) priority here. The stupidity, and it is stupidity, of those who argue that the Greens should carry the can because they knew that she had a disability, is indicative of their lack of sympathy for those with disability.

The Government of Fluff: Googleising the NZ State

Listening to Mr Key glibly talk of "googleising" the NZ state, I am struck ever more strongly by the contingency and muddling through model of this government. The idea of a wholesale privatisation os state activities into the hands of MNCs operating elsewhere was never raised in the election. It is clear in the manner of its current presentation that it is an ill-thought-through idea that should never have seen the light in the throw-away fashion in which it has arisen. There are no costings or operational assessments (this is obvious). Instead, we have a key area of our polity being threatened with a cock-and-bull reform, the details of which are fluff, inchoate ideas in the head of a PM who speaks before he should. It is laughable.

Greek crisis: no resolution in sight.

Greece is on the streets again, mobilised against yet more cuts and redundancies, The German-led strategy in support of the Papademos Government finds little favour in Greece as working people are required to take the consequences of a long history of misgovernment and of the GFC. Bail-out funding requires further cuts still, as the IMF, the EU and ECB (the Troika) seek to run Greece as a dependent state. Greeks want none of it, and will not comply meekly. One has no idea where this will end, but Greece's leaving of the Eurozone remains possible, with all the impacts one might expect on the German strategy for Europe.

Google to run the state sector?

One can see the National mind working. Let's contract out state sector functions to Google, based on everyone having a smartphone (which, of course, in Mr Key's world is a standard good). So does Mr Key propose to take us back into an archaic dependence on overseas Capital and knowledge. It would be funny if it were not so serious. The ideological and closed-minded harrying of the state sector - from erosion of the core provision to privatisation - is nothing more than the manifestation of National's desire to turn our sovereign status over to the whims of a small elite here in NZ in cahoots with foreign Capital.

I say in all seriousness - if this is the future of NZ as a sovereign state under National, the quicker we accept that our future is as a state in the Australian federal system, the better. If not, our decline into banana republic status will be evermore precipitous.

Do we need "professional jurors"?

Research showed jurors had "an array of myths and prejudices" that resulted in laws restricting the use of evidence which could be prejudicial, but professional jurors could be taught to put their own prejudices aside.

The Herald

The idea that we dispense with a jury of twelve and use instead a couple of professional jurors is deeply offensive. Cost-saving pressures would, in that model, allow "taught" jurors to act in the interests of a status quo (and ruling interests) in a manner no different from the prejudices and biases of judges, against which the traditional jury may sometimes act. There is a long history of juries taking a view that is different from judges and their directions. Such actions are an occasional constraint on the class-based application  of justice by the judiciary, and are to be welcomed. I can imagine that the Key Government will love this idea.

Adele

I am not a popular music person as I once was. As someone who saw Led Zeppelin at the 1970 Bath Festival, rap and hip-hop have left me somewhat cold (though Eminem is strikingly pungent). But Adele has a voice to die for. I saw her recently on a Jools Holland show, and I was taken back to hearing Alison Moyet at her best. I will buy her current LP, so good is she.

Used Goods: Mr Key's rating falls.

The UMR Research poll of 750 people shows the Prime Minister's favourability rating down by 9 per cent, to its lowest level in more than two years.

I expect this rating to fluctuate over the coming months, but with a generally more negative substance. His "honeymoon", as commentators are wont to say, is over, and he's into the hard yards phase, a dimension of politics for which he has no obvious experience. Moreover, as the sense that he may want to be off soon gather4s force, his colleagues will, I suggest, be less concerned about propping him up as they face the prospect of an election in three years in which national will be very unpopular. The discussions about the next National leader are already in train; they can only gather pace in coming months.

Back on line....and a note on asbestos

A few days R&R over the ditch are over. Rob Fyfe's  empire is about to fly me back to little ol' NZ. And I'm happy at the thought.

I'm not so happy about the story I heard over the weekend from a lawyer in Oz about the HR strategies of companies knowingly using asbestos, which look (or looked) to recruit staff over 45, on the basis that any subsequent death might be after retirement and disputable in terms of the effects of asbestos. It's a bit like the NZ company I once had described to me, which took a cost-benefit approach to H&S, and decided that they could wear the cost of compensation from claims arising from managerial H&S malpractice. So it goes....

The Dotcom Saga

I don't pretend to understand the complex legal issues that surround the Kim Dotcom operation, especially about the operation of his companies. What is clear is that the NZ government and legal system are acting as a strong proxy for a US government determined to crush Mr Dotcom and his operation. I would want to know a great deal more about the origins of that depth (and level) of feeling about Mr Dotcom in the US before I would be comfortable about his extradition. There is much about this case that gives rise to unease.

The Disillusioned and Grumpy Key

Mr Armstrong beats a drum that others have been beating for some time. Mr Key is appearing disillusioned and out-of-sorts in his office. As I have argued for some time, the lustre of his image has been tarnished, and the he doesn't like the critical scrutiny to which he is now subjected. Taking on the media as he did round the infamous taping put him off-side with many journalists, and he will not recoup that loss. Moreover, his first term provided few if any answers to NZ's problems, and the muddling through, more-of-the same approach already adopted for the second term is impressing no-one. Colleagues like Mr Joyce are getting up people's noses all over the place. NZers do like to be hectored by know-it-all businessmen, a lesson that Mr Joyce clearly cannot learn.

Several years ago, I branded Mr Key as a dilettante, an amateur who would find the serious work of politics too much for him, both intellectually and in terms of the staggering workload expected of a PM. I think Mr Armstrong is on to something, too, about Mr Key's legacy. If he goes in this term, in a poorly-performing economy unaffected by his rhetoric and damaged by his policies, he will be labelled a failure. Mr Key's ego is something that has escaped much discussion, but I would not underestimate its importance (or its potential dangers for NZ).

Mr Trotter on Labour Relations

Mr Trotter is correct in this post. A strong trade union movement is good for our democracy, for our economic performance, and for a fairness in the distribution of the rewards to effort. In each case, the neo-Liberal right (which is pretty much hegemonic these days) detests the role of unions precisely because it achieves these ends. They prefer a weakened democracy, inequality that favours them, and an economy that works to their narrow needs. I have argued similarly before in this blog, and wish that the call was taken up more widely. It needs to be accompanied by a democratic strengthening of other aspects of our society, but strong, capable unions are a very good starting point.

I await with interest the position taken by Mr Shearer's team on the CTU and LP position on employment relations reform. It will be an important litmus test.

$54 million, $500 million: any other bids on the Supercity computer bill?

The Herald returns to a theme that i followed through the creation of the Supercity - the deferred long-term costs of the merger, which Mr Hide glibly talked round, but which everyone knew were a serious liability. The daily rates of IT consultants is one thing. The long term and still very opaque real costs of the Supercity's computer systems is the real story.The final bill over a decade is now thought likely to be $500 million, but we can expect it to be well north of that figure when the final reckoning comes. When the costs of Auckland's infrastructure are being decried as too expensive, we might well ponder on the costs that have been imposed by Mr Hide's vain attempt to deliver Auckland to National.

50 cents: National mock working people

Don't we all remember the Jobs Summit. That commitment by Mr Key to do something about employment and low pay? We still have high unemployment, and very high and dangerous levels of youth unemployment. We have silence from the government on employment creation - maybe mining NZ into the Dark Ages is the secret plan? And the government has given the minimum wage a 50c flick, up to $540 per week before tax. I wonder if National's MPs ever really think what eking out an existence on $540 a week is like? I guess that they belong to the tradition that sees such circumstances as the fault of worker - nothing to do with any structural aspects of the economy or decisions made by employers to adopt a low-wage, 'race to the bottom' mentality. 'We can't afford it' will whine the economists and the Right, as they slug back their cheeky Merlot in Logan Brown. Some economists will, and I tell no lie, argue that the minimum wage should be abolished and wages allowed to go lower still, as an expression of freedom in the market. I assume they are on the top-end Cab Savs. They will tell us that poverty is the reciprocal of growth, no doubt looking at that most inequitable country, the US for support.

It's the sort of thing that makes taking to the streets understandable, as the well-heeled in lordly fashion tell the poor that their situation is simultaneously of their own making and a good thing for the market.

Key and Radio Live

Mr Key offended electoral law by participating in what was a prohibited broadcast when he went on Radio Live. Any sensible person understood that, and Radio Live's "surprise" at the ruling is so much posturing. One might assume that action will follow, if only at the level of an apology for his behaviour. National have been very quick to jump on perceived errors elsewhere. Sauce of the goose etc.. Yet I doubt if Mr Key will apologise, for it's not his style. There'll be a wriggle or two, an ambiguous response, or perhaps nothing at all, min the hope that the issue will die a natural death. It's not a biggie, but indicative of the disrespect that this government displays towards the democratic order.

Key on Asset sales

I'm not sure if  a 'hammering' is precisely what Mr Key received in Parliament yesterday over asset sales. What is clear, however, is that the parliamentary process will be a lot rougher for the government across a host of policy settings, and that this will be an erosive process. Whatever you think of Mr Peter, she is red in tooth and claw when it comes to the attack mode in Parliament. And with multiple attacks from a range of parties, and with a front bench that is of mixed quality, Mr Key will have to have more stamina than he's shown so far. Further slippage into the nastiness that Labour reports is the Key approach in Parliament will corrode such reputation as he has. I note the Mr Brownlee was forced to ride shotgun quite a lot yesterday, providing a spoiling defence of his leader (often is a strikingly ungrammatical manner, if the written reports are to be believed).

It's going to be a rough three years, especially on asset sales, which now look like nothing more than a vanity project for the private sector.

The Contador Ban

I have a friend, a serious scientist-type, who is a  cycling nut - the sort of person who goes to France every year to follow the Tour de France. She tells me that top-level cycling is rife with drug misuse, and one would have to be very naive to think otherwise. This is in my mind as I hear of the two-year ban on Alberto Contador for traces of clenbuterol (and, also, the stripping of his 2010 Tour de France title). The traces are, we are told by the media, small, and a defence has been launched that they are too small to be used as evidence for such measures. On the other hand, cycling global body is well aware of the sport's reputation for drug misuse, thinks the traces are clear, and has had enough. Sr Contador has been pinged, and that's that.

One wonders if it ever possible to control for such cheats, and if exemplary punishments have much effect. Equally, one can hardly turn a blind eye, as the cases of cyclists doing themselves permanent damage indicate. That said, I wouldn't watch cycling on the tele, except for the ToF when the countryside is stunning, especially in the mountains. Watching a group of super athletes, over which the cloud of suspicion now hovers as it does over cyclists, holds no attraction.

A thought from Surfer's "Paradise"

I am indeed in Surfers, and understand evermore clearly what the urban sprawl acolytes in NZ want to see north and south of Auckland. Surfers is, of course, the antipodean Marbella or Benidorm, a long stretch of tacky hotels and apartments, intermingled with a plethora of booze shops and fast food joints, stretching interminably along what must have been beautiful beachs south of Brisbane. The surf is indeed good and the view seawards is still striking, Turn 180 degrees and the outcome of untrammelled and crass coastal design stretches away in all directions.One can see in time the same, from Pakiri to Whangarei, an endless international medley of KFC, the dustbin pizza and cheap lager, encapsulated in towers of pre-formed concrete, an interspersed with nice, protected, low-rise estates for the affluent. Surfers tells us why we need hard regulation in planning.

Mr Joyce: Trust me, I'm a businessman

Mr Joyce is becoming more and more like a Norman Tebbit figure. He was the pit-bull snarling in support of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980. As I noted the other day, Mr Joyce is entering the new parliamentary term pugnaciously, presumably on the basis of attack is the best form of defence. His piece yesterday has been taken up elsewhere, but I do notice the familiar Joycian letmotif once more - I was a successful businessman so what I say carries extra weight. And he hectors, boy, does he hector. I imagine that most of us on the Left want him to continue in present guise. A hectoring, pro-despoliation businessman-turned-politician, who seems to think the rest of us are good-for-nothing ingrates incapable of action, is just about perfect as a mobilising force for opposition to mining.

I do think that Mr Joyce is becoming the Left's secret weapon.

NZ expats have a drink for Waitangi Day; Shock Horror.

This is not a story that should be anywhere near the front page of a serious newspaper.

Rob Salmond on NZ Taxation

New Zealand's top tax "wedge" of 33 per cent on incomes above $70,000 is lower than all 27 other high-income nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, after including social security and payroll taxes which do not exist in this country.

Rich New Zealanders also escape without paying any tax on capital gains that would be taxed in most other countries.

On the other hand, New Zealand has the world's most comprehensive goods and services tax (GST), taxing 98 per cent of all potentially taxable consumer spending compared with a developed world average of 59 per cent.

New Zealand is one of only five high-income OECD nations that do not allow any exemptions for food - a key factor in our high food prices.

The Herald

I am waiting for the torrent of criticism from the Right at such blatant anti-government propaganda from The Herald. Fancy The Herald telling it like it is, pointing out that our affluent have an easy life in taxation terms, yet our economy still fails to fire (surely the measure of success of our taxation system). Rather, the Right want to exacerbate the situation by creating greater pressure on the poor (via welfare cuts and the like - including dumping bigger class size in the state sector) and removing "pressure" on the rich (for example, more subsidies for business, recommended new tax shifts designed to reduce taxation on business and the wealthy).

Coda: and here it comes - it would be ungenerous to suggest that the phrase "At some stage I hope to have time to discuss it in more detail." is code for "I will give the government's reply to this when their spin doctors work out how to justify the status quo in NZ taxation".

Gillard re-surfaces (for the moment)

Gainful employment brings me to Australia several times a year, so I am tapping this out after a constitutional along the Brisbane River ( a walk which makes me think that we might usefully send Auckland's port to Tauranga, and do something exciting with that swathe of harbour front from the bridge to Mechanics Bay).

The news here is that the Rudd coup against Ms Gillard has, for the moment, failed in the face of a rise of Labor in the polls and of Ms Gillard's personal standing as PM. She is still vulnerable, and one would be foolish to bet on her future, but the irritation with Mr Rudd is palpable in conversation here. He is not loved, and most to whom I speak believe that Labor has a better chance in the next election with the incumbent.

The three Labo(u)r leaders I "follow" - Shearer, Gillard and Miliband ( to which I will add Hollande, if he wins) - all face the same problem - leadership in an ideological vacuum in terms of a strongly-stated social democratic creed. All are trying to manage (or promising to try if elected) the current crisis (a relative term when you are looking at a dynamic Brisbane) on terms that are decreed by Capital - the slash-and-burn model of welfare cuts, debt management, smaller government and labour market flexibility. All are eschewing any "Left" agenda, instead arguing the "better management of Capitalism" line, associated with a strong apolitical centrism. They have chosen to fight with one arm tied behind their backs, perpetually at a disadvantage in the calculation about a successful management  of Capitalism. Even the inequality issue, surely one on which ground could be made, is being played carefully and without controversy by Labo(u)r in all three polities.

By the way, Australian rates will be cut today as another protective measure for the economy.

My favourite feminist joke from the 1970s

What do you call two men, lying dead in a field?

A start.

It still brings a wry smile to my face.

QE 2

My life and the reign of QE 2 are, give or take 12 months, the same span of time. She's been in the job for 60 years now, and is long past superannuation. Her position is out-dated and her family is the stuff of soap opera (though no-one, apart from perhaps Ricky Gervais, could come up with the tampon moment).If the Royal Family, and its role in NZ, ended tomorrow, I would shed not a tear.

Yet, I admit to admiration for the woman. She's stuck to the job, through thick and thin. She's coped with a husband with wandering habits, intellectual and otherwise. She's plodded the world in her lead-weighted skirts, opening things, shaking hands, eating endless dinners with dictators and saints. She told Mrs Thatcher what she thought of her. She has, with steely determination, endured the dissection of her life by the media, from her obstetric conditions to personal wealth. She's done a job that I would not have done for all the tea in China, or all the gold plate in Windsor. Her position may be an anachronism. Her wealth may be offensive. But her annual performance review must be a cracker.

NZ Business with hand out again

The free booting, stand-on-its-own-two-feet image of NZ business is so much hot air. Ms O'Sullivan, in her pursuit of China, today laments that government is tardy in funding its China strategy (incidentally, blaming officials as she goes, when it is politicians who are holding back the money), She thinks about $50 million is needed and should be ear-marked in the budget. Yep, our dynamic business sector needs another $50 million hand-out to understand that China is important in the global economy. You have to hand it to them. Scourge of scroungers and decent wages, they are very quick indeed to make their demands on the pork barrel. No doubt Mr English will oblige in due course, taking from the poor and giving to the affluent with nary a concern.

On the fragility of the Key Government

It was clear on election night that National did not do as well as they might have hoped, and that their margin of control over power is fragile. Many commentators are now picking this up as the Maori Party rails against the Section 9 omission. It appears that Messrs Key and English are already back-tracking on this, obliquely blaming Treasury for their advice on this, but in practice believing that private sector ownership in partially-privatised companies will be constrained neither by Treaty commitments nor the nominal public holding in the companies.

It will be interesting to see how Mr key manages what is now a far more challenging political environment, in which his own lustre is no longer burnished, and his particular style of ad-hoc problem solving will lead as often to knock-on problems as permanent and positive solutions. In such situations, one expects his fellow ministers to follow careful and political-nuanced paths, yet already colleagues such as Mr Joyce are showing themselves to be as pugnacious as they were in the last term, and as inflexible in their ideological persuasions as ever. National will have to hope that its fire-fighting skills are better than its political nuancing skills, for the lack of one will call forth the other.

Protest at Waitangi

There is much of the ritual about annual protests up North at Waitangi celebrations. Even Maori commentators note the "usual suspects'" presence and agenda, and many Maori commentators lament the lack of the right mixture of courtesy and forceful commitment to different political positions. This year, there is another element to the fracas. The weakness of the Maori Party's position as a junior and subservient partner to National has inflamed some passions, as have the recent actions of the National-led government. Inexorably, it seems, National is slumping back into the mixture of grudging and minimal acceptance of the Treaty and its consequences, wrapped up in a thick layer of neo-liberal policy that actively opposes the effects of such institutional arrangements (as we see in the Government's position on Section 9).

In this context, the call for another "New Zealand Day" must be viewed with suspicion. The de facto multiculturalism of contemporary NZ is reasonably a basis for consideration of who we are and are coming to be. But the watering down of Waitangi celebrations now actively being proposed carries with it, not just messages about multiculturalism, but also about an attack on institutional blockages in the market economy. We should be clear why, and with whom, and how we want to discuss the celebration of our sovereignty, and it is a debate that is still ill-formed.

Rob Fyfe for Pope

Mr Fyfe appears to be a lone figure in the NZ business firmament, in that he is, it seems, universally perceived as a success, and so is being touted for everything from an international airline top job to Telecom's succession. My own view is that he should think bigger - Benedict will not be around forever.


Unions in Air New Zealand have a slightly different view of Mr Fyfe, and some of his deputies, including some of those internal candidates being proposed as a successor. External plaudits are not entirely met by the same internal feeling, and there is a quiet amusement about the external "noise" around Mr Fyfe shared by many staff.

Why does Ms O'Sullivan engage with "The Standard"?

I did not agree with the tone (and some of the substance) of the Standard article that accused Ms O'Sullivan of being a traitor. It was silly, and, as I suggested, obscured the real debate that we need to have about policy on FDI in NZ. I am a little surprised that Ms O'Sullivan hasn't simply ignored the sillier aspects of the exchange, and focused on the substantive issues at greater length. FDI n(and privatisation) are political issues, upon which nationalist campaigns can, and will, I think, more widely, be built. The simple neo-classical model of free trade and investment holds few attractions outside the closed shop of neo-classical orthodoxy, and even Mr Key (and the testy and rude Mr Joyce) have been forced to admit that somewhere there is a political line that cannot be crossed in terms of scope of FDI in NZ. This is also a space that Labour could occupy rather well, if it had the intellectual firepower and energy to do so.

Pondering on the Crafar Decision

The Crafar Decision has produced fascinating effects. We have Mr Fay busily demanding that NZ interests be given preference in his judicial challenge to the government's decision (and who on the Left would want to be seen supporting Mr Fay?).  We have Standard writers trying to argue that it's China's political circumstances that make the deal a bad one (Cameron good, China bad?). Then we have Messrs Trotter and Kelsey arguing versions of a Labour-derived force majeure, and a Mr Moore seeking to offer an internationalist perspective against unholy national cross-class alliances. I simplify, of course.

These are eternal political questions for the Left. They split the early Internationals. They dominated the debate about how one was to support the USSR when living in an oppressive capitalist nation. They were the meat-and-drink of anti-colonial independence struggles. And they permeate our current debate about what (weak) social democracy should do when located in a national economy and polity in a globalising world, in which decision-making is increasingly diffused beyond the control of any Westphalian state.  And we don't have a developed politics that yet matches this changed circumstance.

I tend to take a prosaic and probably over-simple view of this. I don't favour Albanian solutions. Isolationism for a long-term trading economy is not a palatable prospect. So we must trade, and that requires (pretty much) a willingness to allow the movement of FDI, and the ownership (by us, that is, our Capital) of assets in other sovereign nations, and vice versa. So the issue becomes the conditions under which such arrangements are permitted.

Here we do face a particular problem. Ideally, each sovereign state would define a particular set of conditions appropriate to its needs (those needs again being those primarily of Capital, though one might hope that they would also include a wider reach).  The problem is twofold - ideologically, we are, in general, in the grip of an economic orthodoxy that does not permit such "tailoring" of circumstances, and, second, we are substantially path-dependent, that is, the institutional arrangements in place as an effect of GATT and WTO and a host of related international economic arrangements tend to support that orthodoxy. The terms of the FTA with China are but one incident in that path dependency.

I think this situation is now becoming a race between two scenarios. The one is essentially to identification and implementation of the equivalent of the accommodations that were found in the 1930s and 1940s, and which, for the developed world at least, gave us another 30 years of stability. If such an outcome is possible, it would now be far more inclusive, as an effect of global integration. In my happier moments, I see this as a possibility. I can a see the blueprint for what it might look like, but that is for another post.

The alternative is much bleaker. The inequalities, intra and inter-economy, that are now exercising us are, for me, the herald of increasing levels of conflict of a post-Westphalian nature. History tells us that epochs pass through a terminal phase of conflicts, often rising and collapsing swiftly, each cycle of which being met with greater repression and causing greater disruption. I no longer believe it apocalyptic to believe that we are in the early phases of such a terminal phase. Non-Westphalian conflicts abound are are increasingly beyond the control of even the strongest sovereign state. The response of states is greater military and policy action, with inevitable consequences.

Now, historically such epochal challenges have given rise to new arrangements - the transition from a dominant Feudalism to a rampant Capitalism, for example. People living through such epochal changes usually fail to understand them (look at the transition in thinking between, for example, the Physiocrats and Marx and Weber, for example, or between Ricardo and Marshall) but we must hope that, if this is indeed the course upon which we are set, that in the next decades we will come to understand the options that future political order offer to us (for the choice between those options is always the site of political conflict).

MED: I want some of what they are smoking....

MED is touting the prospect of NZ as a net oil exporter if its (and National's) fixation with mineral extraction is taken forward. We've already seen the East Coast offered a future as a "New Texas". MED is fuelling this hyperbole in its advice to its minister. Never mind the technical difficulties and environmental issues associated with deepwater drilling and extraction. Never mind the question about whether the oil is there in sufficient quantity to justify such grandiose claims. Oil and mineral fever is gripping ministers and officials in a manner that suggest straws being grasped. Indeed, there is something of the cargo cult in the references to minerals as a lifebelt for our economy. Let's hope wiser, longer-term and sensible views emerge as an antidote to this extractive frenzy.

Education is important, and parents vote!

The government will be looking at the idea of school closures and increased class size, touted by Treasury as cost-saving measures, with growing concern. Most of us cannot afford to pay the $18,000 a year that delivers superior teachers and small class sizes in the St Cuthberts of this world. Most of us must send our children to state schools, in which staff, also often superior, labour under larger class sizes, constrained resources, and a constant ideological battering by National's Ministers of Education, who seem to regard teachers as "the enemy", rather than as a vital and positive element in a modern, successful society.

The state sector education system touches all of us, except that very small affluent group which can afford private education. We will not take happily to the Mr Keys of this world telling us that our kids have to have reduced individual attention in larger classes, whilst his kids are in the state-supported private sector. We will not vote for governments that speak with a forked tongue about education - rambling on about productivity and performance, then undermining one of the key building blocks thereof.

POAL and the Right Blogs?

The Standard has a post alleging that POAL has private investigators tailing MUNZ staff, giving rise to to such things as a picture of Mr Parsloe and Mr Shearer together on the street.

The use of such measures is not far-fetched. POAL is playing for high stakes. Reputations and jobs are on the line on the board and in senior management. The desire to crush MUNZ is strong. Extreme measures are often associated with such disputes. One has only to read the history of employment relations in the US to understand how this might be. The Open Country Cheese dispute two years ago indicates that such behaviours are not unknown in NZ. It is also interesting how Right Blogs have become a formal channel for POAL management views into the net-based media, and one could see a process of leakage to Right Blogs as part of the expensive PR strategy POAL management has set in place (at some cost to we ratepayers).

The we have the idea that Mr Parsloe meeting Mr Shearer is somehow indicative of clandestine and suspicious behaviours. Walking publicly down Anzac Ave is hardly suspicious. The parliamentary leader of the LP meeting an affiliated union's leader is hardly surprising. The idea that Mr Shearer should not consult carefully to understand the issues involved in the dispute is crass. But in the fevered and management-primed imaginations of the Right, gold from Moscow has been found. They are just a little pathetic in their childish coverage of this meeting. Still, what would one expect?

That said, there is a lot going on in the background to the dispute. It has still some way to run, and various interested parties are, sub rosa, attempting to chart ways through the impasse. The outcome is by no means certain.

TEU on Treasury's Tertiary Approach: more nonsense

If the nonsense about class size in schools isn't enough, Treasury has outshone itself with its advice on the tertiary sector. As TEU President Sandra Grey puts it;

“There is no evidence that shifting funding to favour younger students getting degrees will have any impact on the economy at all. In fact Treasury’s focus on degrees at the expense of other qualifications will take away opportunities from some New Zealand families who most need education to lift themselves up and contribute to New Zealand’s economy..........Treasury thinks it can pick winners and invest only in them. This denies opportunities to all other ordinary New Zealanders........ We should not research things only because a private firm thinks it can make a profit. Often there is a crucial need for research that is not solely in the interests of private companies."

She is quite right. And her words will fall on the deaf ears of National. who wouldn't know a successful tertiary sector if it saw one. Successful systems like that of Finland would look at the crasser aspects of Treasury's advice and wonder if we had an intellectual death wish.

Mr English: class size does not matter? Think again (more carefully)

The overwhelming majority of these studies {on class size impacts} have focused on elementary school and even pre-school effects of class size on student achievement. The conventional wisdom among parents, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers is that smaller class sizes translate to improvements in student learning and outcomes. This conventional wisdom, however, has not been universally supported by empirical evidence. While a number of studies have found support for the importance of class size on student achievement, others strongly refute this claim concluding that class size has little to no impact on objective student outcomes. The difficulties in assessing the causal influence of class size on student outcomes, such as achievement, are (1) class size itself is often not directly observed but rather proxied by pupil-teacher ratios at the state, district, or school level, (2) many data sets used to analyze this question are cross-sectional and thus do not allow one to control for fixed student, teacher, class, or school effects, and (3) class size itself may be endogenous in a student outcome equation. Nonetheless, the general consensus among researchers examining this issue is that if class size matters at all its influence is most pronounced at the lowest grade levels.

Monks and Schmidt (2010)

Mr English argues today that savings can be made in education by, for example, increasing class size. He asserts that increased class size will not have an adverse effect on educational outcomes. This is a desperately loaded view. A recent overview of the literature concludes as above. The debate is by no means settled, and to move forward on that basis is dangerous in the extreme. It smacks of ideological conviction mixed with a simple desire to save money, regardless of the impact. It is particularly galling when Mr Key, for example, has sent his  kids to schools where small class size is advertised as a benefit (Kings and St Cuthberts). Like Mr Banks on Charter Schools, it is again a "do as I say, not as I do" argument by those who wish to impose poorer delivery on we hoi-polloi, bit preserve their own privileged status.

Mr Key's Government: Hypocrisy Central

The Herald shows unequivocally that the Key Government's public line on Section 9 is utterly at odds with their real reasoning. Treasury accidentally (in an unexpected and quickly-reversed example of "open government") loaded draft documents on its webpage showing the explicit political (not constitutional) objection of the government against any binding of the private sector to Treaty commitments. it appears that this government does not like the private sector to be bound in any way by such commitments. The argument is, essentially, that private business should not be encumbered by restrictions based upon our founding constitutional document.

Two things follow from this for me. First, how can the Maori Party continue to support a government which takes this explicit position? The pork barrel would be the only explanation. Second, how can we trust this government to take our constitutional order and bi-cultural status seriously, when it is willing to dispense with such issues so easily on behalf of sectional business interests?

This is a damning revelation - perhaps not surprising, but the stuff of serious constitutional debate.

Maori Party: toothless

The gutting of Te Puni Kokiri whilst the MP is in cahoots with the Key Government is telling. National has never liked the organisation, has white-anted it over many years, and will be pleased to be able to use the smoke-screen of the alliance with the MP as its cover as it pushes through cuts. So far today, there has been barely a peep from the MP, which is also being tossed and turned by the section 9 issue. Wait for the cuts to Whanau Ora to start. They will come, as day follows night.

Maui Street is interesting and, to me, correct on this.

The Christchurch Dilemma

The travails in Christchurch are far more than a spat between the mayor, members of the council and the CEO. It involves the performance of CERA and of central government. and reflects, in part, a natural build-up of tensions following the earthquakes and the slowness of the recovery process (in part provoked by the slow responses of the insurance industry) and, also, a growing failure of the political order to meet residents' needs for communication and action. Central government is busy trying to insulate itself from this package of issues, hoping that the fall-out will remain at the local level. The absence of Mr Brownlee from media coverage of the current issues indicates this clearly. Central government will be lucky to remain "external" to the problems. The scope of Christchurch's issues and their impact on the local democratic process will drag in Wellington inexorably. It cannot take the praise it claims for an effective response without also taking a fair chunk of the adverse commentary, currently sheeted home to local government. We can be sure that Wellington will seek to avoid the appointment of commissioners, for that will remove the current insulation enjoyed by central government.  This parliamentary term will have a strong leitmotif Wellington's attempts to keep that insulation in place.

ACT Tail wags National Dog (vigorously)

It is delicious to hear National forced into qualifying everything that Mr Banks is saying about "his" Charter Schools initiative. On "Morning Report" we had the trial up and running this year, and Ms Isaac appointed and ready to roll. By lunchtime, we have National telling us that the end of the parliamentary term is the roll-out period, that Ms Isaac's appointment is still to be processed, and that the group to be created is to consult first. Nevertheless, at lunchtime, Mr Banks is still full of himself, spouting on about how ("under my tutelage") immediate action will follow.

So we have ACT already playing up (and with Mr Banks in charge, what else would we expect?), and the Maori Party very grumpy, and Parliament is still to sit. Some political management needed, perhaps?

Two excellent posts on Cricket and Politics in Australia

http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/peanuts-and-politics.html

http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/hoggy-keeps-laughs-coming.html

Trickle down

When National Elder Statesmen are in court...

It is notable that Sir Douglas Graham's prosecution for alleged failures as Chair of the Lombard Finance and Investments' board has attracted very little public attention. Here we have allegations about poor business practice as practiced by an elder statesman of the National Party, someone who might be expected to be held up as a beacon of good practice by the party of free enterprise and rampant Capitalism, and there is little reflection on the contradictions raised by the allegations.

Stripping Knighthoods for bad business practice is a growing industry. Could a guilty verdict lead to the sane for Sir Douglas, I wonder?

The Tangled Web of the Maori Party

The spoon simply wasn't long enough. The Maori party has supped with the Devil, found that it involves being marginalised and taken for granted, but has no-where to go. They weren't consulted about the SOE sale implications for Treaty commitments. As an afterthought, Mr English has now been in touch, but too late. Mana is hammering the MP, MP supporters are fuming at the prospect of the loss of reference to the Treaty, and Mr Key is indicating that he is able quickly and easily bring the MP on side, as one would call a loyal gun dog to order. The MP can't win. Any solution will be a watering down of what MP supporters expect. Walking away will be a signal of the failure of the collaborationist policy. Ms Turia and Mr Sharples are left swinging, and the MP looks even more bedraggled than it did at the election. Meanwhile, Wira Gardiner is busily trying to deliver Maori for National in another tokenistic gesture. It's a mess.

Ms Isaac and the Charter Schools

Mr Banks' appointment of Ms Isaac to run the Charter School trial is hardly surprising. This is an ACT-imposed, ill-thought through, ideological measure, more about asserting the presence of the private sector in state-funded education than building a stronger education system. Why would we expect anyone with educational background or qualifications to be involved in its running? The underpinning rationale - if you have a modicum of business experience, you can run anything - is exposed in all its arrogance in this appointment. And the targeting of South Auckland for this experiment by ACT reflects Mr Banks' own deep fear of the "brown masses" that he exposed in his election campaign for the Supercity mayoralty. The Right frequently harangues the Left about social engineering. The biter is indeed bitten in this case.