Xmas hope lies in stroppy Copenhagen protest

Over the past 16 years I’ve taken my kids away camping in the week before Xmas. I detest the frenetic, consumerist hype of the season, the cloying Xmas carols piped to crowds of exasperated shoppers with tired toddlers and the in-your-face push to spend, spend, spend. Add in Auckland’s daily traffic chaos in the growing heat of summer and if there’s a purgatory on earth then this is it.

The chance to holiday away from the rush has mental and financial benefits while keeping the kids occupied in sparsely populated camping grounds beside beautiful beaches is the best bonus.

If you can’t get away this year then try to plan for it next year. It comes with a high recommendation for families with young kids.

Most of us know we will overspend and overindulge at this time of year but the inevitable momentum of the season propels us onwards to a host of family responsibilities and expectations.

Most kids are overindulged. Gifts from parents and extended family members can overwhelm them with junk. For many years now plastic crap and cheap rubbish have replaced the solid treasured toys of previous generations. So much of the stuff that looks good in its gaudy shrink plastic wrapping turns out to be less than robust and lasts just long enough to disappoint.

I hope this doesn’t sound Scrooge-like. Xmas should be the family highlight of the year but it’s become more a celebration of consumption.

I wonder what Jesus Christ, whose birthday Xmas celebrates, would have thought of the whole scene. I think he’d be avoiding the frenzy and living the words of his Sermon on the Mount. He’d be spending his time (and his money) with the lonely, the marginalised and the poor.

This year most of my gifts will buy ducks, cement, mangroves, water, goats, chickens and seeds for families in overseas development projects. They are gifts you purchase through Christchurch-based Christian World Service for your family members to send to CWS project partners in Timor Leste, Uganda, the Philippines, India and other places in the developing world. What better gift could we give our own kids before we even begin to consider how it will transform lives in other places? If we want children to develop good human values of generosity, selflessness and compassion this is a good way to start. So why not make the first gift you buy your kids and other family members some ducks ($15) or a goat ($30)? It also means you can stop worrying about buying something for those who have everything and what’s more it’s also they are the only gifts in the marketplace which come with a tax deductible receipt.

If you want to follow up then check out the CWS special gift programme on www.cws.org.nz

And how about a gift voucher to a child saying you have given the gift of a food parcel on their behalf to a New Zealand family living in poverty. Your local foodbank will be grateful. The Auckland City Mission newsletter says their emergency food parcels issued this year are up 52%. I think it’s the first gift Jesus Christ would have given.

If you buy children’s books then why not look for a book with a message that matches the supposed values of the season? I’m not sure what’s around for kids these days but I recall a delightful story about Xmas for an impoverished family from Poland. It was called Just Enough is Plenty and the story matches the message of its title. Unfortunately we should by now have our own home-grown stories with the same theme, given the level of endemic poverty in New Zealand.

Meanwhile our government is preparing an important Xmas gift for our children as well. John Key is heading to Copenhagen to join with other governments to come to an agreement on climate change. Whatever emerges will help decide what environmental legacy our generation will be leaving for our kids.

All the signs are that it will most likely be a weak, self-interested, short-sighted approach to global warming which will leave a badly crippled planet for them to inherit.

Having further watered down Labour’s already inadequate legislation, New Zealand at Copenhagen is siding with the developed world which is striving to continue its own unsustainable emissions and shift more climate responsibility onto developing countries.

The protests on the streets at Copenhagen will help balance the heavy pressure being wielded by the corporate sector who use governments as a cover to push their growth-at-all-costs agenda.

We can’t rely on John Key. A stroppy, successful Copenhagen protest is the best gift we can hope for our kids this Xmas.

ENDS

TVNZ has retarded attitude to Paul Henry

I wasn’t going to write about Paul Henry. I didn’t see the point in saying the obvious about his mocking of UK singer Susan Boyle as a “retard”. But the failure of Television New Zealand to act on its own behalf (and our behalf because it is a state broadcaster) and deal with him is deplorable.

We are now two weeks after the event and there’s still no sign of criticism from the TVNZ leadership for Henry’s boorish behaviour. And no apology from Henry either. It’s been left to his colleague Peter Williams to issue a public criticism. Williams told the audience at last Thursday’s Attitude Awards, to honour New Zealanders with disabilities, that “I completely disassociate myself from Paul Henry. I only wish he could be at nights like tonight, to be inspired by people with amazing attitudes.”

Henry’s comments have been excused by saying Boyle suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and was therefore technically retarded. But Henry went much further, saying “here’s the really interesting revelation: she is in fact retarded….And if you look at her carefully, you can make it out”.

Retard is now used as a broad term of abuse from the days when it was used to describe a mental deficiency. But it was Henry’s mocking use of the term which was offensive and obnoxious. He laughingly used it as a term of ridicule and thought it was all a joke.

He did the same earlier this year mocking a woman guest on his show for having what he described as a moustache.

These are the sorts of things one might expect to hear from immature adolescents in a school playground. Why should we have to put up with it from a host on broadcast television?

In all likelihood TVNZ has given Henry a nod and a wink and encouraged him to be a bit “edgy” and “push the boundaries” in a pitch for his programme to be the breakfast television equivalent of talk-back radio.

Whether or not that’s true the latest Henry incident marks a new low point for TVNZ. It’s hard to see it as other than another marker in how far the broadcaster has slipped into terminal decline.

I watch very little television and can’t remember the last time I watched TV1 or TV2. They have been used as a political football by governments for a long time and it shows.

Most recently Labour gave TVNZ the impossible job, via so-called Charter obligations, to be both a high quality local programmer while at the same time providing a dividend to the government through advertising income as a commercial broadcaster. To cut a long story short this was a failure and the demand for dividends from successive governments has led TVNZ in a race to the bottom as it pitches lower and lower. The latest Henry saga is the lowest watermark yet for this once impressive organisation.

Meanwhile the government is using the recession as an excuse to slash public spending and is taking the axe once more to TVNZ with reports the broadcaster needs to make $30 million more in saving after it cut 80 staff positions in March following a $25 million shortfall in advertising revenue. It’s a fair bet that after the next election the National Government will move to privatise all or most of TVNZ and it’s hard to see there will be much of a public outcry. Is there anything worth saving from this broadcaster we could once have felt some pride in? I don’t think it’s salvageable as a state broadcaster.

Any self-respecting organisation would have taken Henry off air till the whole issue was dealt with. With his past transgressions I’d have expected him to have been cast adrift permanently a long time back.

Instead of acting on its own behalf TVNZ says it will wait for formal complaints to be lodged and will then follow through with a process to decide if Henry’s behaviour was offensive and warrants further action.

It seems TVNZ is beginning to reflect the standards of the cheap reality TV shows it broadcasts which celebrate the ritual humiliation and degradation of competitors in subject areas as diverse as cooking, survivalist camps, pop shows and modelling. We are seeing more and more extreme versions of these shows as they seek to outdo each other and win the ratings battle on behalf of corporate advertisers.

So instead of working to provide quality television TVNZ is looking for cheap distractions to keep viewers watching between the adds. Paul Henry fits the bill.

ENDS

Lots of good reasons to support this $15 petition

Last Saturday I spent three hours at Auckland’s Grey Lynn Festival collecting signatures for Unite Union’s $15 minimum wage campaign.

The aim is to get 300,000 signatures for a citizen’s initiated referendum which asks the question “Should the adult minimum wage be raised in steps over the next three years, starting with an immediate rise to $15 per hour, until it reaches 66% of the average total hourly earnings as defined in the Quarterly Employment Survey?” (For the record the adult minimum wage is currently $12.50 an hour with the minimum for 16 and 17 year olds set at 80% of the adult minimum for their first 200 hours or three months employment)

In general I’m not a fan of CIRs. The experiences here and in places such as California have been negative with contradictory outcomes being common.

However unlike most previous New Zealand referenda this one asks an unambiguous question and if adopted would do more to close the wage gap with Australia than any of the pontificating from the Don Brash-led taskforce.

It’s a popular petition. Nine out of ten agree immediately and sign without a second thought – the issue resonates immediately. Instinctively people know New Zealand workers are well behind where they should be and are still losing ground.

The reactions of the 10% who won’t sign are interesting. One man told me the problem was too much taxation and politicians were wasting public money. There’s always an element of truth in politicians wasting public money – Rodney Hide comes to mind – but when I asked him why it was that countries with the highest taxation had the highest standard of living he exploded. “Liar, liar” he fumed. I gave the example of the Scandinavian countries where taxes are high but services in areas such as health and education are the best in the world. Confronted with an uncomfortable challenge to his prejudices he became more agitated. “Liar, liar, liar” was all he could splutter loudly and continuously while his partner signed the petition. I made a last attempt to break through with reason but he was a lost cause. His partner apologised as she handed back the clipboard…

Several people I spoke to were small business owners who employed staff. A woman dealing in cut flowers said the profit margins were too small and raising the minimum wage could put her out of business. However it turned out she paid her staff $18 an hour and agreed $15 wasn’t an excessive ask for any employer. She agreed the problem for employers would be greatly reduced if the minimum moved in all businesses at the same time.

One young man shrugged off the petition. He said he’d started out being paid $7 an hour and because he did it hard others after him should do the same – he wasn’t prepared to lift a finger or engage in a wider discussion.

Another woman quizzed me at length about the effect raising the minimum would have. She said it might make it harder for young people to get jobs. I told her this was predicted by employers several years back when the campaign to raise the minimum to $12 an hour (from $9.25) was launched. It didn’t happen. Youth employment actually increased throughout the time Labour moved to $12 over three years. We agreed that this could change in an economic downturn but the country is coming out of recession (so we are told) and by the time the referendum is held unemployment should be decreasing steadily.

Only one person said to me he thought “the market” should set pay rates and there should be no minimum. Roger Douglas would have been proud – here was a true apostle. He didn’t stay to explain how a family should be expected to survive with a breadwinner earning perhaps $5 an hour at times of high unemployment. Already we have too many working families living in poverty.

Another said she’ll never sign a petition again after she signed one and ended up on a mailing list. I sympathised but she moved off before I could ask why she would let someone else’s behaviour limit her democratic participation.

But what surprised me most was the depth of feeling which accompanied the willing signatures. About 200 signed my sheets in three hours which I thought was pretty good despite knowing another 250,000 are needed before May 1^st next year.

Getting enough signatures will depend on how many people across the country can help out. If 1000 people commit to getting 300 signatures each we will get there. The union is calling such people working-class heroes. Indeed!

ENDS

Hone Harawira – speaking truth to power

If you drive from Auckland to Hamilton you pass through some of the richest farmland in the world. Settlements like Pokeno, Rangiriri and Huntly dot the route as the road runs down from the Bombay Hills and along the Waikato River.

Along the way virtually everything you see in all directions is confiscated land. It was stripped from Tainui after the British colonial army marched down Auckland’s Great South Road and invaded the Waikato in 1863. The land was taken for the alleged “rebellion” of Tainui but the Waitangi Tribunal found the people of the Waikato had never rebelled but had been forced into a defensive war.

The same story is repeated around the country most particularly in the Bay of Plenty and Taranaki. All together more than three million acres of prime land was confiscated as a result of the land wars of the 1840s and 1860s.

Even Tuhoe, who refused to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, had their most productive coastal lands in the Bay of Plenty confiscated by the Crown because they supported other tribes in the defence of their land such as at the famous battle at Orakau Pa. The confiscation of land was officially punishment for Maori resistance but the real reasons were to provide highly productive land for land-hungry European settlers as well as to defray the costs of war to seize the land in the first place.

Other myriad cases of alienation of Maori land through bribery, corruption and theft have been well-documented through the Waitangi Tribunal process but the history remains obscure to most.

Alienation has continued through most of the intervening decades. The Maori Land Court was used to individualise and privatise land titles and force the sale of Maori owned land through demanding payment of rates and dog taxes. More land was seized under the Public Works Act for war purposes and never returned.

Setting aside the expletives, Hone Harawira was 100% correct when he said “…white motherf…ers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries.” And later when he singled out Phil Goff and Labour for the biggest recent land grab – the foreshore and seabed – it needs to be seen as part of the same historical context. Those who say the issues of the 19^th century have no relevance in the 21^st century ignore recent history and how the devastating impact of colonisation on Maori continues to be visited in the present.

None of this should need to be said but the reaction of so many to Harawira’s angry email resembles the deeply embedded racism which Don Brash tapped into so successfully a few years back at Orewa.

I’ve been very critical in the past of the Maori Party judging people on their race rather than their behaviour. For example the refusal of Pita Sharples to criticise Robert Mugabe as he brutalised Zimbabweans, the support shown for Donna Awatere-Huata (convicted fraudster) and Taito Philip-Field (convicted of bribery and corruption). In each case the Maori Party leadership reacted to race first and behaviour second despite Awatere-Huata and Field ripping off the very people the Maori Party claims to represent. For some reason this was lost on Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia.

For the next couple of weeks this saga will continue – the Maori Party leadership trying to force Harawira’s resignation and him defending his position in the party. None of this will take Maori or New Zealand any further forward.

Abandoning Hone Harawira is a deeply disappointing approach by the party leadership. It seems they are more concerned about negative pakeha reaction than about the fundamental accuracy of Harawira’s comments and how they are perceived by Maori. It seems Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples have begun to take on the attitudes and values of their political colleagues in coalition.

For her part Tariana Turia has made it her priority to work with National ministers to implement the Whanau Ora programme whereby Maori families will get co-ordinated support from Maori providers through Maori networks. There will be some gains for Maori but these are unlikely to be significant because we know the underlying cause of the extreme social problems we face in New Zealand is the high level of income inequality which has blossomed in the past 25 years. Hone Harawira is the Maori MP who understands this better than most.

It’s the Maori Party leadership, rather than Hone Harawira, which faces a critical decision in the next couple of weeks. Will it seek to appease National or will it accommodate its strongest voice which speaks truth to power?

ENDS

Rodney Hide’s hypocrisy

I’m not impressed with Rodney Hide’s apology. It has now become a stock in trade for wayward politicians to apologise and expect the public to forgive.

Early last week I thought we’d got to the bottom of his hypocrisy with the $25,163 of taxpayer money spent on trips for his girlfriend which included a round the world jaunt with him as Minister of Local Government (an extra $25,000 for taxpayers) only to find out later in the week taxpayers also paid 90% of an earlier holiday for the couple in Hawaii. Hide had quietly paid the holiday money ($10,000) back to parliamentary services and hoped no-one would notice.

Enough has been said about the ACT leader’s double standards. Not only did he build his political career on strident criticism of MPs perks but ACT made its name criticising wasteful public spending. Now in the middle of a recession Hide sneakily bypassed the Prime Minister’s directive for ministers not to use their ministerial allowances to take partners overseas. Instead he used his parliamentary allowance as an MP elected before 1999 to achieve the same result. Taxpayers would pay.

Taxpayer subsidised travel for Hide’s girlfriend is more than a worker on the minimum wage could expect to earn in a year and much more than a solo parent struggling below the poverty line. Somehow Hide sees his girlfriend as more deserving of taxpayer support.

After relentless criticism of MPs perks the ACT Party leader stopped the gravy train just long enough to jump on with his girlfriend and then kept telling us we all had to tighten our belts during the recession while he was taking his off.

It’s an interesting commentary on ACT. This is the party which prides itself on policies which demand low taxes, less government spending and expecting individuals be more responsible in their personal lives. However it’s all just window dressing. Like most hardened capitalists they believe the rules of restraint and personal responsibility apply to others. Earlier this year former ACT Party leader Roger Douglas used his parliamentary perks to spend $44,000 on a trip to London to see his son’s family while demanding cuts to government spending in the recession. Double standards again.

More interesting than Hide’s two-faces of personal responsibility were his comments reported at the ACT breakfast fundraiser last week when he criticised John Key as not doing anything as Prime Minister – except launch the national cycleway. Hide complained that ACT did everything but was hated while the PM did nothing and was liked. He went on to say he had no trouble getting his ideas through cabinet. The other ministers were too absorbed in their own portfolios to take much notice apparently.

This is likely to be substantially true. Despite ACT gaining just 3.6% of the party vote at the last election Hide negotiated for himself a very powerful position within Key’s government. As Minister of Local Government he is keen is to push through what Green MP Sue Kedgley calls Rogernomics Part 2. In other words to bring to local government the same user-pays, privatisation, community-destroying policies which Roger Douglas brought to the 1984 Labour government.

Most National MPs are keen on these policies and are happy to see the Epsom MP drive the agenda they know is unpopular with the public. They are happy for ACT to be hated while their smiling assassin John Key avoids public wrath.

Hone Harawira’s misdemeanours are mild by comparison. He was wrong to leave his parliamentary delegation leaderless and head off to Paris for sightseeing. It looked bad because it was bad. And his angry email to Buddy Mikaere was also unacceptable. He reacted angrily when his side trip was questioned and responded with a race-based comment which assumed it was just pakeha criticising his jaunt.

I’ve often been critical of Maori Party MPs who react to race when it’s the behaviour which is wrong. The party’s refusal to criticise Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, its automatic support for the likes of Donna Awatere Huata (former ACT MP and convicted fraudster) and disgraced Labour MP Taito Philip Field (convicted of bribery and corruption) was based on their ethnicity as was Hone’s attack on those criticising his Paris jaunt.

We will always have badly behaving MPs but what we lack is the ability for voters to recall MPs who abuse their position. A petition signed by say 10% of voters in an electorate should be sufficient to force a recall poll which would give an electorate the ability to remove their MP from parliament. Such votes wouldn’t be held lightly and in the cases of Hide and Harawira would probably not be activated.

However simply the existence of the power to recall an MP would be enough to keep most of them a lot more respectful of taxpayers than we’ve seen from recent events.

ENDS

Personal responsibility starts with the brewers

Another appalling road crash. Two teenagers killed with others hospitalised in serious condition. This time it’s Hawkes Bay and a late night collision near Napier on a bridge over the Tutaekuri River where a van with seven young people going home from a party collided with a car.

There are horrendous pictures and distraught faces as devastated families are trying to come to grips with the tragedy. At the centre is the all too familiar combination of alcohol, teenagers and cars.

The family of the 16 year old at the wheel of the van deny alcohol was a factor but it seems the police hold the opposite view. And who would be surprised. Young people killing themselves and others in road crashes where alcohol is a factor are a common feature of life in New Zealand.

In the coming weeks there will be much mourning the loss of these young lives and plenty of finger pointing at young people not acting responsibly when it comes to alcohol. The young driver will be held responsible and it appears the police are likely to lay charges.

We all expect young people to be responsible for their actions but just pause a moment and look what these teenagers are up against. There is a whole industry spending two hundred thousand dollars a day encouraging New Zealanders to drink more and it’s young New Zealanders who are at the sharp end of alcohol promotion.

The alcohol industry are creating new products every day to target teenage drinkers. Alcopops or RTDs (Ready To Drinks) were popularised by Michael Erceg’s Independent Liquor and are targeted at teenagers. And it’s not just boys but increasingly young girls are in the alcohol industry spotlight. These sweet drinks which disguise the taste of alcohol are popular with young women – they have become cocktails for teenagers. Erceg left a billion dollar business when he died four years ago and the empire continues to grow on the backs of popular youth drinks such as Woodstock and Pulse, not to mention the KGB parties (KGB is a popular alcopop) which the company sponsors. Again the focus is on encouraging young New Zealanders to booze up large.

And then there is Lion Nathan and Dominion Breweries who are promoting in the same youth market. Dominion Brewery’s Tui brand shamelessly uses sex to promote alcohol and along with its various promotions such as the Miss Tui competition and Tui Brewery Girls Calendar it’s no wonder we have problems when we expect our teenagers to navigate such a vigorously-promoted, booze-sodden culture.

Personally I’ve had a gutsful of hearing about the failure of teenagers to take personal responsibility for their actions when no-one is calling for alcohol industry leaders to show the same personal responsibility.

Where are the questions for Geoff Ricketts, Chair of Lion Nathan since 2001? According to the December 2008 issue of Management magazine Ricketts philosophy “is to deliver strong returns for shareholders while conducting the business in line with deeply held values of integrity and doing the right thing for the long-term health of the business, the environment and the societies in which Lion Nathan operates”. Yeah right. It seems the dangers of alcohol abuse come a distant second to heavy promotion of alcohol to our youth so the company can deliver “strong returns to shareholders”.

And what about Brian Blake from Dominion Breweries which pushes the Tui advertising campaign targeting young New Zealanders? Where is his personal responsibility in all this?

Similarly with the director of Independent Liquor. I’m sure there will be the usual tut-tuting around the boardroom about irresponsible teenagers before the directors get down to salivating over the graphs showing increasing sales and growing profits from alcohol abuse.

Why is it that personal responsibility passes the corporates by? Why does it only apply to a 16 year old taking her friends home after a party?

These companies are all expecting teenagers to drink responsibly while they cynically push, push, push their products at young New Zealanders.

I’d like to see Geoff Ricketts and Brian Blake and the private equity directors who own Independent Liquor turn out on a Friday night to pick up the human remains of young lives lost from the irresponsible promotion of alcohol to youngsters.

It will be a good day in New Zealand when these booze barons take some personal responsibility for their actions rather than leave it to a hapless 16 year old to explain why she was drinking before the horrendous accident which killed two of her friends.

ENDS

National Standards threaten public education

The most encouraging aspect of the launch of the government’s so-called national standards last week was the decision by teacher and principal groups to boycott the gathering.

Despite Prime Minister John Key labeling the event the most important development in education in 20 years serious concern among educators is so widespread that those who job it is to implement the standards stayed away.

Predictably the Minister of Education was furious but is determined to force the changes through. She says she is “delighted for the first time that parents will now have information on what their children should be able to achieve and by when.”

She also said “Parents want, and deserve, clear information on how their children are doing at school.”

Prime Minister John Key took up the theme saying “parents want, and deserve, clear information on how their children are doing at school.” He said the standards were supported by parents, would lift achievement standards and provide “clear signposts” on a child’s progress.

It all sounds like motherhood and apple pie. Anyone would think schools were deliberately keeping parents in the dark and the government was stepping in to force those know-all teachers to toe the line.

In fact the vast majority of schools do provide parents with high quality data which tells the parent how their child is progressing, what the areas of weakness are and what needs to be done to improve in any particular area or excel further in areas of a pupil’s strengths. They also tell parents how they progress compared to other kids of the same age.

So why are teachers and principals so opposed to national standards? Simply because they will not raise educational achievement one iota but will bring a host of negatives for schools and pupils. There is not a single credible educational academic or school leader who supports the government on this one. Educators know the government is playing politics with our kids’ futures.

It is true the government of the day has the responsibility to set the direction of educational policy and the responsibility of the sector to implement it. But there is also a profound responsibility on education professionals to let the public know when a government has got it wrong.

So it’s good to see them kicking up a fuss. Their responsibility to parents regarding the education of kids is greater than their responsibility to the government of the day.

So this comes down to a battle for the hearts and minds of the public. The government is wading in with simplistic rhetoric which tries to convince parents that teachers and principals and preventing parents getting good information. They are claiming the national standards will improve student achievement but there isn’t a skerick of evidence to back up this claim.

On the other hand our education professionals can point to a host of overseas examples where national standards have had a dreadful and demoralizing effect on students and student achievement. The government is insisting on a policy which educators know does not work.

Waiting in the wings are the media who are siding against schools and championing their right to compare schools with league tables, based on national standards. They did this with secondary schools where they lauded praise on the likes of Cambridge High School and Avondale College and slammed low decile schools. Heaven knows we don’t want primary schools emulating Cambridge with its artificial 100 pass rates and what the media told us was inspiring leadership.

National wants national standards because it supports the idea of competition between schools and is quite happy for the media to publish the data to pit school against school. When this has happened overseas the effects have been wholly negative with teachers changing focus to “teach to the tests” and children getting a narrower curriculum.

The damage associated with national standards far outweighs the supposed benefits. It’s good to know our principals and parents will resist this most damaging development from the Minister who slashed night classes.

ENDS

ACC under threat from privatisation

I’ve been lucky enough to claim ACC only twice in my life.

The first was when a stack of dumps (two wool bales compressed into one for shipping) in a Napier woolstore collapsed and broke my leg. The compound fracture left me with five months in plaster and several weeks of physiotherapy to follow.

The second was a week off work with an infected knee after being pierced with a wool hook. For most of the time since then I’ve worked in relative safety as a classroom teacher but at the time I needed it the ACC was a godsend. It paid 80% of my working income throughout that time with medical treatment and physiotherapy paid in full. I hadn’t experienced life before ACC which had only come shortly before my first accident so I took it for granted. And so should we all.

National are itching for a chance to undermine this pillar of community-provided welfare for accident victims and last week launched their first foray with a raft of proposed changes to increase levies and reduce cover.

Firstly ACC Minister Nick Smith set the scene for policy change with a dramatic announcement of ACC liabilities being far beyond the ability of the fund to cover. He said it was a billion dollar disaster and would wreck the economy if not reigned in. One might have thought he was talking about the big four banks but somehow their billion dollar taxpayer gouging is not on National’s agenda. Instead its state-provided services he has his ideological eye on.

As several commentators have pointed out clearly and succinctly Nick Smith’s announcement was grossly misleading but there is nothing like claims of economic crisis to soften up the public for bad medicine. The scheme in fact is cheaper and run than comparable schemes anywhere else in the world. The ACC architect back in the 1970s, Owen Woodhouse, points out it cut administrative costs from about 30% in private insurance schemes to just 10%. He blames the problems with the scheme to the National government’s decision in 1998 to allow private sector insurers to compete for accident insurance.

The government’s proposed increases in levies will hit motorbike riders the hardest and it’s true this group have a higher accident profile. When I was in the male orthopaedic ward around three quarters of the other patients had broken bones from motor bike accidents. So should these riders pay a higher levy? I can’t see why. There is no evidence bike riders are more responsible for accidents they find themselves in than are car drivers. It’s just that bike riders are much more vulnerable in accidents. In fact there is a case for reducing ACC levies for bikes. They are more efficient with a smaller carbon footprint and we could dramatically reduce the need for more roading if a higher proportion of road users were on two wheels.

But National’s further differentiation of levies is another step to “user pays” rather than “community pays” and this is a necessary element to privatisation.

Meanwhile Smith’s proposal for reducing cover for the families of suicide victims is thoughtless as were his comments comparing loss of life through suicide with that of terminal illness. But the biggest impact of the proposed reduced cover is for seasonal and casual workers. Calculating ACC payouts using the average of their yearly earnings rather than the previous four weeks’ earnings will result in lower payouts for these already vulnerable workers. Why should their down-time between employment be used to reduce their accident income? They are already the lowest-paid workers yet do essential work for the economy in the likes of horticulture and hospitality. Why should their payouts be cut simply because they are vulnerable workers and easy to pick off?

Meanwhile all of us will face stiff increases in ACC levies. This is another important prerequisite for National’s plans to privatise the service. Higher levies and the chance for bigger profits will encourage the private sector to move in. A cheaper public-service based approached is anathema to National.

Their plans are for the most valuable parts of the service to be run for private profit while the bulk of what remains will be left for the taxpayer to pick up. This follows a familiar pattern. The first step in privatising rail for example was selling off the profitable freight forwarding section which left the rump in an even more parlous economic condition.

Nick Smith isn’t having it easy. His proposed plans are under threat because he can only proceed with ACT backing and Rodney Hide wants the privatisation speeded up. National went into the last election with plans to privatise provision but want to leave the “p” word out of policy till their second term of government. ACT is putting the pressure on and John Key says he’s open to the idea. The rest of us shouldn’t be.

Infratil puts the boot into low-paid bus drivers

Last Friday I joined a protest by Auckland bus drivers locked out by their employer, the Infratil-owned NZ Bus company.

It was a lively, spirited protest by some 400 drivers and supporters. Many are from the Pacific and an entertaining feast of singing and dancing accompanied open defiance of the company’s best endeavour to starve these workers into submission.

Earlier in the week the drivers had issued a work-to-rule notice saying they would not drive buses with faults, buses without radio telephones and wouldn’t break the speed limit when faced with tight timetables. They took this action after a full five months of bargaining.

It’s not surprising they want a better deal. These drivers have a starting rate of just $14.05 an hour and can be rostered anywhere between 4.30am and 1am the following morning. Their shifts will often be split leaving them with four hours unpaid work in the middle of day and they can be away from home for up to 15 hours at a time. They don’t get regular morning or afternoon tea breaks and can be rostered up to 5 ½ hours without a break.

When the NZ Bus drivers announced the work-to-rule to achieve the same as other bus drivers in Auckland the company response was to lock them out. No work till they agree to the company’s terms.

This is just the latest in a series of lockouts of workers around the country as employers go on the offensive against workers. Lockouts were once a rare event but have recently become commonplace. In the last two weeks companies have closed the door to workers at Bridgeman Concrete in Auckland and Open Country Cheese at Waharoa and at a number of smaller worksites around the country. These employers have had it so good for so long they aren’t used to workers fighting back. They are reacting with high-handed arrogance and aggression when Oliver Twist comes back for another ladle of gruel.

A worker fightback is long overdue. One of the locked-out bus drivers told how he has been a bus driver for 30 years. In 1982 he was paid $7 an hour when this was the median wage in New Zealand. By the late 1980s, when allowances were included he was earning $15 an hour. Now in 2009 he is on just $16 an hour with minimal allowances. The median wage in the meantime has risen to $18.70 (June 2008) but if his wage from 1982 had kept pace with inflation he would now be earning $21.66 an hour. Over the 30 years he has been driving the median wage has dropped in real terms by 15.8% while the purchasing power of his pay has decreased by no less than 35.4%. In other words all low and middle-income workers have gone backwards but these drivers have gone backwards much further than most.

On Infratil’s website there is the usual corporate spin about how visionary they are and how they invest in people. They should mention this applies only to director and senior management salaries – certainly not their bus drivers.

Much more insightful though is the bald statement “Infratil’s primary goal is to provide its shareholders with a consistent return of 20% per annum over the long term.” So there you have it. Lowly paid workers are being locked out so Infratil can keep passing fat cheques to its shareholders.

One might think the company would consider Auckland commuters before locking out the drivers but this doesn’t seem to bother them. They are running a monopoly on most bus services so they can afford to ignore public sentiment which seems to be firming up behind the drivers. People are asking why this very profitable corporation can’t pay the same rates as other Auckland bus companies.

Infratil claims the problem is strike action by the union and hopes the public will blame the drivers. It’s all spin – the workers are locked out by a resource-rich corporation which puts profits before people – either employees or the public. Families on low rates of pay don’t have the financial resources to sustain a longer-term lockout and this is what the company is counting on.

NZ Bus gets huge subsidies from Auckland ratepayers in a win-win deal for Infratil. On the profitable routes they get to keep all the profits while the ratepayer makes up any loss on routes which are not profitable. And it’s not chickenfeed. Auckland ratepayers give them over $58 million every year.

NZ Bus is a good example of why essential services such as public transport should be in public hands where they can be run more cheaply, more efficiently and reliably with better pay and conditions for those who do the work.

Devastation in Samoa and South Africa

There’s only been one story on New Zealand’s mind this week with devastation in Samoa and Tonga dominating the news with the heart-rending stories of families ripped apart by the tsunami which killed so many and destroyed so much.

I agree with those who say New Zealanders have reacted well. We have taken to heart the suffering of the victims and generous donations from many quarters are helping in the immediate relief effort. It’s as though New Zealand now sees itself as a South Pacific country rather than an outpost of the British empire as it did until not so long ago.

Most of us are Pacific Islanders now it seems which is a pleasant change from earlier decades when feelings often ran high against Pacific migrants coming to New Zealand.

Our government has not reacted with the same generosity of spirit with only a million dollars allocated at the front end of the tragedy and another million belatedly added. Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says there will be more and Prime Minister John Key reiterated this during his weekend visit.

However it’s worth remembering the extent to which the New Zealand economy has been built by Pacific Island labour these past 50 years.

Compared to the $2 million the government is donating to the relief effort Pacific Island workers have helped businesses here accumulate billions in capital. This was, and still is, predominantly in low-paid, insecure, family-unfriendly work. These jobs have benefitted the Pacific as money remitted from here helps keep the local economies afloat but the benefits are lop-sided in favour of New Zealand business.

There is always the tendency to see the Pacific as dependent neighbours and treat them paternalistically while eyeing whatever resources and business opportunities they may have available. In reality the dependency is as much the other way round.

It’s important we remember this when it comes to further aid from New Zealand for reconstruction. In Disaster Capitalism author Naomi Klein describes how similar disasters have been used to rebuild economies to the detriment of local people. New Orleans in the US for example was rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina with so much of the public sector services such as schools now operated via private contracts. Murray McCully won’t be averse to looking for such opportunities to provide “aid” with strings attached. We need to keep an eye on him.

Another story touched a raw nerve with me last week when an armed gang of 40 men attacked the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban, South Africa. Three were killed, many injured and over a thousand people fled their homes. The attack was nominally ethnically based but it quickly became apparent the real target was the very successful Abahlali baseMjondolo (Dwellers in the Shacks) organisation which has its headquarters there.

ABM is the largest movement of the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. It has developed links across the country with other shack-dwellers and while it is politically independent it is deeply resented by the ruling African National Congress. ABM is telling the world the emperor has no clothes. ANC policies are benefiting the wealthy but impoverishing the people.

After the initial attacks the police turned up the following morning and arrested members of ABM rather than investigating the attack. Local ANC officials blamed ABM for the violence and said people wanted ABM out of the settlement. The police chimed in and what has been reported is such a tissue of lies as would do credit to the old apartheid regime. Death threats have been issued against the quietly charismatic ABM President S’bu Zikode and his family and the organisation has been forced to meet in secret.

I visited Kennedy Road in April this year and was privileged to be welcomed at one of ABM’s regular monthly meetings where representatives from many squatter camps come to develop policies and address day to day issues and campaign for a better future. It is a profoundly democratic organisation.

The informal settlement is now run by a local ANC representative with police backing. Attendance at meetings depends on being able to produce an ANC membership card. It is a dark time for South Africans fighting for better government policies to support the majority of the population. 15 years of ANC rule has left most worse off while the number of ANC millionaires increases each year.

Whether the problem has a natural cause, as in the Pacific, or is man-made, as in South Africa, it is the most vulnerable who suffer the most.

ENDS