Archive
Mining, Drilling, Arresting, Imprisoning – Simon Bridges
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On TVNZ’s Q+A last Sunday, Energy Minister and Dear Leader Mini-Me, Simon Bridges, announced a new law with heavy sanctions against protesters who “want to stop other people going about their lawful business and doing what they have a permit to do and they are legally entitled to do“,
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Acknowledgement: Radio NZ – Govt plans hefty fines for offshore mining protests
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In plain english, Bridges was referring to activists and local people who tried to stop Petrobras and Anadarko from deep-sea prospecting of the East Coast of New Zealand.
To refresh the reader’s memory;
Anadarko is the same company that, it was revealed in November 2011, Dear Leader John Key was meeting in secret talks,
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Acknowledgement: TV3 – Key keeps meeting with Anadarko boss quiet
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(Funny how Key habitually meets corporate businessmen in secret…)
Anadarko is the same company that was involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men on the platform; injuring 17 others; and released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean from a 10,680 metre deep well.
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Acknowledgement: Wall Street Journal – Judge Rules BP, Anadarko Liable in Gulf Spill
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Petrobras – the target of sea-going protesters in March and April of 2011 (see: Protest flotilla taking on oil giant ) – intercepted and protested against Petrobras’ prospecting-drilling ships at the Raukumara Basin, off the East Cape of the North Island. The water at the Basin is deeper than those of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew apart.
During the protest, on 23 April 2011, the skipper of the ‘San Pietro‘, Elvis Teddy, was arrested (see: Charge laid after oil protest).
With Petrobras’ track record of oil spills elswhere in the world, it was hardly surprising that people on the East Coast were angry that their coastal waters were under threat,
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Acknowledgement: TV3 – Brazilian oil spill draws attention to drilling in New Zealand
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Six months later, the MV Rena would run aground the Astrolabe Reef, spewing 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel into the east coast waters, and onto beaches (see: Rena ‘worst maritime environmental disaster’)
No wonder many New Zealanders wanted no part of deep sea drilling of our coast. Well, most New Zealanders,
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Meanwhile, on 11 April 2011, Dear Leader Key had a rush of blood to his head and took on quasi-fascist overtones when he threatened to unleash our own military forces on protesters. As Fairfax Media reported,
Prime Minister John Key is not ruling out using the Navy or Air Force to ensure multi million dollar oil exploration work off the East Coast continues.
Key today hit out at groups protesting against exploration by oil giant Petrobas by saying the company should be able to carry out work it was legally entitled to do.
Acknowledgement: Fairfax Media – PM hits out at Petrobras exploration protesters
Not since the 1951 Waterfront Lockout has a New Zealand government used the military on it’s own people. This is the sort of man that our Prime Minister is.
However, the Nats have become more cunning, and instead are proposing to amend the law, criminalising sea-going protests with heavy fines and terms of imprisonment. As Simon Bridges said on TVNZ’s Q+A (31 March 2013),
JESSICA MUTCH I want to start off by asking you your predecessor in a speech, Phil Heatley, said, ‘I’m determined to ensure the mining sector is not hampered by unsafe protest actions by a small but vocal minority.’ You’ve been working on this since taking over. What are protesters in for?
SIMON BRIDGES So, that’s right. So we are acting, and so two offences are going to be put into the Crown Minerals Bill. Look, the first of those is truly criminal offence. Effectively, what it says is that it will be stopping people out there at deep sea, in rough waters, dangerous conditions, doing dangerous acts, damaging and interfering with legitimate business interests with ships, for example, seismic ships, and what they’re doing out there.
JESSICA What fines are we talking about there?
SIMON Well, for that one, 12 months’ imprisonment, or $1000 (please note: the minister meant $100,000 not $1000) or $50,000 fine, depending on whether you’re a body corporate or an individual. Then a lesser, more infringement offence, really, strict liability offence for entering within a specified area, probably up to 500 metres within that ship, again because of the dangers associated with doing that.
Acknowledgement: TVNZ: Q+A – Transcript Simon Bridges Interview
Jessica Mutch challenged Bridges on this,
JESSICA Isn’t this just about putting commercial interests, though, ahead of the rights of New Zealanders? We saw this- the Government doing this with The Hobbit as well.
SIMON No, I don’t think so at all. Look, I think what you’re seeing is a desire to ensure that really reckless, dangerous acts out hundreds of miles from the shore don’t happen. I don’t think it’s on. I don’t think most New Zealanders would think it on. They’d agree with me, I think, that it should be treated as criminal behaviour.
And then a glimpse of truth came out,
JESSICA Did mining companies complain to the Government?
SIMON Oh, there have been complaints. Look, I’ve talked with a range of businesses.
JESSICA So isn’t this just basically a sot to mineral companies and mining companies?
SIMON No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think what’s also true is this is best practice. You look at Australia, you look at other countries, they already do this. We’re also, I think, here filling a gap in the sense that to the Territorial Sea – that’s 12 miles out – you already have these sorts of provisions. Even the Exclusive Economic Zone, as I say, a massive area – 4 million-odd square kilometres – there are some provisions for oil rigs and so on. But for these moving vessels, where it was very dangerous and we thought so, that’s where we’re acting.
JESSICA Was this prompted by the Elvis Teddy case?
SIMON Look, that’s certainly part of the genesis of this.
JESSICA Well, that’s interesting because Phil Heatley said, ‘Protest action played no part in the company’s decision to quit New Zealand.’ So what does it even matter?
At which point, Jessica Mutch laid it on for Bridges, who could only deny, deny, deny,
JESSICA Are you basically trying to send a message to mining companies to say, ‘Hey, look, don’t worry. The Government’s got this. We’ll take care of the protesters. Come on down and have a look around’?
SIMON No, because what’s quite clear, as I’ve already said, is that there are many ways that Kiwis can protest if that’s what they want to do – fill their boots with protest. There are many ways they can do that, but as I say, look, when you’re talking about this dangerous kind of activity where lives could be lost, and I’m not putting that too highly, I think it’s right that we make it criminal behaviour and seen as criminal.
JESSICA You’re clearly looking to help out mining companies…
For full transcript, read here: Q+A – Transcript Simon Bridges Interview
Bridges and Key can deny all they like, but the proposed law changes – like the ‘Hobbit Law’, Search and Surveillance Act, etc, are all designed to stifle dissent and increase corporate and State power.
Never mind Labour’s so-called “Nanny State” that National complained about in 2007 and 2008 – this has the hallmarks of a nasty, petty authoritarian, government.
This is the sort of threatening behaviour we have previously seen from National Ministers. Instances such as Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce, who on 27 September 2011, warned protesting university students to keep their “heads down”,
“My general advice to NZUSA (NZ Union of Students’ Associations) on the cost of living for students is to keep your heads down because actually most people probably think you’re doing OK.”
Acknowledgement: NZ Herald – Minister to students: ‘keep your heads down‘
If National ministers go ahead with this draconian law, I suspect our jails may soon be filling up with protesters. The ‘martyring’ of protesters is nothing new in this country.
Bridges may find a whole bunch of New Zealanders willing to stand up to this sort of bully-boy tactics.
I suggest he read up on history. Like the 1981 Springbok Tour.
Red Squad anyone?
This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 2 April 2013.
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Previous related blogposts
Corporate Welfare under National
Anadarko: Key playing with fire
Petrobras withdraws – sanity prevails
Additional reading
Meet Anadarko, The Oil Company Struggling To Get Off The Hook For The Gulf Spill
Judge Rules BP, Anadarko Liable in Gulf Spill
Brazilian oil explorer Petrobras faces refinery pollution charges
Nats plan greater gas and oil exploitation
TVNZ: Q+A – Transcript Simon Bridges Interview
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Horizon Polling on Criminalising sea-going protests – Part Rua
Continued from: Horizon Polling on Criminalising sea-going protests
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Note: this header-image above was not partof the Polling Questionnaire in any way, shape, or form. Are you paying attention, Slater? Step awaaaaay from the computer terminal…
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The results for the Horizon Research Poll*, on criminalising sea-protests via the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill;
79% want sea protest law change reviewed or stopped
16 Apr 13
Credit: Element Magazine
Surveys finds New Zealanders uncomfortable with sea protest law changeOverall 79% of New Zealanders, regardless of their political alignment, believe a bill restricting rights to protest at sea should now go back to a Parliamentary Select Committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions or be dropped.
The Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill is due to go through its third and final reading at Parliament today (April 16).
The Horizon Research survey of 1,308 New Zealanders aged 18+, between 12:26 pm on 13 April 2013 and 10:30am on 15 April 2013, finds:
- Overall, 51.4% oppose a proposed new law which would make some currently lawful protest activities against petroleum and minerals activities at sea unlawful
- Support for the law change is 30.5% while the remainder are neutral or undecided.
The changes were introduced to the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill 2012 in Supplementary Order Paper No 205 (SOP No 205). The proposals contained in SOP No. 205 were first outlined in a media release on 31 March 2013 and the Supplementary Order Paper itself was released on 2 April 2013 by Hon Simon Bridges – Minister of Energy and Resources.
Meeting as a Committee of the Whole on April 11, the changes won support by 61 votes to 59 in the Parliament. The bill is now set down for its final reading on Parliament’s next sitting day, Tuesday April 16, 2013.
The Horizon survey finds
- 49% of respondents were not aware and 51% were aware of the proposed law changes before doing the survey
- Overall, 60% think the law change process has been undertaken too quickly, and
- 52.3% believe the bill should be sent back to the Select Committee. A majority of those who support parties who voted for the change think that the bill should be sent back to the Select Committee
- Overall, 79% support either sending the bill back to the Select Committee or withdrawing it entirely.
The National, Act and United Future parties voted for the SOP in the House on April 12, Labour, Green, Maori and Mana parties against.
Q7. Thinking about the proposed law change, which of the following actions would you support? TOTAL
Supporters of:
Parties who voted for the SOP
Parties who voted against the SOP
The bill should become law immediately 20.1%
37.1%
6.0%
The bill should be sent back to select committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions 52.3%
51.6%
52.2%
The bill should be withdrawn and not passed into law 29.7%
13.5%
42.2%
Something else should happen 7.3%
2.0%
7.4%
Support and opposition to the changes proposed to the bill are strongly aligned to support for political parties. Support comes primarily from those who support the parties that voted for the changes; opposition largely from those who support the parties who voted against the changes.
Overall, however, a majority of respondents, regardless of their political alignment, believe the bill should now go back to the Select Committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions.
There is general acknowledgement that many important environmental protection initiatives arose from protests at sea, including the moratorium on commercial whaling, the bans on dumping nuclear waste at sea and on using of driftnets, New Zealand’s nuclear free status and the end of French atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific. While that acknowledgement is stronger among the opposition, a majority of supporters of the change feel that way as well.
Opinion on the harshness or otherwise of the change and associated penalties is again politically aligned.
There is also an indication that more discussion and better information about the change may lead to people being less neutral about it. While support remained a minority overall, respondents were a little more supportive at the end of the survey that at the beginning. Similarly, more opposed the change at the end of the survey than at the beginning.
A Horizon Research report on the survey can be downloaded here.
* Reprinted in full from Horizon email-out to respondents.
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References
NZ Herald: Protester law avoids public submissions and Bill of Rights vetting (3 April 2013)
Previous related blogpost
To be followed up at The Daily Blog
See upcoming blogpost: National’s disdain for democracy and dissent
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Meanwhile, back on Planet Key…
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1. Treasury, IRD, tax cuts…
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Acknowledgement: NZ Herald: Income tax cut tipped as best bet
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It appears that right wing bureacrats in the ‘zoos’ we know as Treasury and IRD are, once again, advocating tax cuts.
A recent report by Treasury and IRD are once again pushing for tax cuts as a ‘panacea’ for our low economic growth. As Brian Fallow reports,
They conclude that cutting personal income tax would be the most effective in boosting economic welfare.
“Boosting economic welfare” for whom? We already know that there is a widening wealth/income gap in this country. (see: NZ rich-poor gap widens faster than rest of world, see: Gap between rich and poor highest ever, report shows)
So really, that argument is ideological clap-trap. In fact, New Zealanders have enjoyed six tax cuts since 1986, and the mantra of “ cutting personal income tax would be the most effective in boosting economic welfare” seems as much an empty promise as ever.
The report next claims, that tax cuts,
“…would increase incentives both to work and to save and invest.”
No… the real incentive to save (via Labour’s Kiwisaver) was the $1,000 kick-start which government is offering ever New Zealander who opens a Kiwisaver account.
Other tax cuts have simply given people more cash to pay of debt; invest in mortgages (rental properties) or buy imported consumer goods. None of which contributes to our economy. In fact, our private debt continues to skyrocket,
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Acknowledgement: Treasury – 4.2.2 Private-sector debt and factors affecting it
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At the same time our savings record has been abysmal, as Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Alan Bollard,said on 14 June 2010,
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Based on our Monetary Policy Statement, we forecast New Zealand household savings to improve from a very poor position to one that has improved, but is still in significant deficit. We believe that since the crisis, New Zealanders have decided they are over-exposed to property assets and to high debt, and they are prepared to constrain consumption to improve their savings. But we are unclear how much rebalancing they contemplate, and for how long.
Acknowledgement: Reserve Bank NZ – New Zealand’s Economic Recovery, External Vulnerabilities and the Balancing Act Ahead
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The report also suggests altering the “fiscal drag” – whereby an increase in salary/wages ‘bumps’ the earner into the next highest tax bracket,
That would have to be some big ‘bump’,
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Acknowledgement: IRD Income tax rates for individuals 2012-2013
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Families receiving Working For Families pay much less tax, as the report clearly stated,
“And for a couple with two children and one earner, who is on the average wage, the tax burden was just 0.6 per cent, with Working for Families tax credits, compared with 26.1 per cent across the OECD.”
Acknowledgement: NZ Herald: Income tax cut tipped as best bet
The report recommended,
“A simple change to current thresholds in 2015, to correct for five years of fiscal drag since the 2010 tax reform, is estimated to cost around $1.5 billion per annum.”
If the report’s suggestions are to be taken seriously and implemented by National, the result would be a massive one-and-a-half billion loss in tax revenue.
Where have we heard this before?
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Acknowledgement: Scoop.co.nz: Govt’s 2010 tax cuts ‘costing $2 billion and counting’
Which then led us to this,
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Acknowledgement: Interest.co.nz: Treasury lowers govt’s forecast for 2014/15 surplus to NZ$66 mln from NZ$197 mln on Budget day
See also
Govt austerity slows growth, keeps rates low – RBNZ (13 Sept 2012)
Govt deficit up as tax take dips (5 Dec, 2012)
Now in case any National/ACT Party supporters are reading this and are still sceptical, I refer them to this piece from the United States,
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Acknowledgement: The Atlantic – Tax Cuts Don’t Lead to Economic Growth, a New 65-Year Study Finds
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Basically, in a nut-shell, the findings of the study in that news item stated,
In 2001 and 2003, President Bush cut taxes, and we faced a disappointing expansion followed by a Great Recession.
Does this story prove that raising taxes helps GDP? No. Does it prove that cutting taxes hurts GDP? No.
But it does suggest that there is a lot more to an economy than taxes, and that slashing taxes is not a guaranteed way to accelerate economic growth.
That was the conclusion from David Leonhardt’s new column today for The New York Times, and it was precisely the finding of a new study from the Congressional Research Service, “Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945.”
Analysis of six decades of data found that top tax rates “have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth.”
Acknowledgement: IBID
Heck, I could’ve told you that.
In fact… I have.
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2. Rio Tinto, Meridian Energy, Bill English…
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Tiwai and Bluff are situated in Eric Roy’s Invercargill electorate – sitting adjacent to Bill English’s Clutha-Southland electorate.
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Acknowledgement: Wikipedia – New Zealand electorates 2011 election
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In the US, this is known as “pork barrel politics“, where politicians support certain industries in their own constituencies, so as to save their own political necks.
I could imagine the electoral fall-out if the smelter was allowed to close down. English and Roy could kiss their lucrative, well-paid, parliamentary careers goodbye. And might even face a less-than-friendly welcoming committee if they ever showed their faces in Southland again,
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3. Rio Tinto, Meridian Energy, Fran O’Sullivan…
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It’s not a pretty sight when one of National’s tame journalists – in this case NZ Herald’s Fran O’Sullivan – falls out of love with Dear Leader. The shock to her system – when she realised that Key, English, Ryall, Joyce, et al, are dodgy bastards willing to cut secret, back-room, dirty deals to facilitate their deeply unpopular asset sales – must have made her question her loyalties to this shabby, so-called “government”.
The use of our taxes to subsidise a billion-dollar trans-national corporation – whilst superannuitants, low income earners, and the poorest of the poor freeze during winter (see: Winter triggers 1600 more deaths ) – must be stomach turning for all but the most dogmatic National Party supporters.
Plus, this blogger has never read so many, none-to-subtle allusions, to men’s genitalia in one article. I encourage the reader to read Ms O’Sullivan’s entire column – it is eye-opening,
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Acknowledgement: NZ Herald - Govt intervention doesn’t cut mustard
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When right wing columnists turn against National and the most popular Prime Minister since [insert another prime minister's name here], and write a stinging attack on their inept, ad hoc, policies – then you know the tide has turned.
If National’s ministers are going to strike secret deals with big corporations, giving them access to millions in electricity subsidies, the least they could do is demand a 49% share-holding in said corporation (a “mixed ownership model” in reverse) so the taxpayer gets something in return.
But then, National’s much-renowned, so-called “business acumen” is nothing more than a carefully-crafted, self-created myth. In case National voters haven’t been paying attention, the MPs they voted for are inept.
And it’s our taxes they’re pissing against a corporate urinal.
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4. Mining, Drilling, Arresting, Imprisoning – Simon Bridges…
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On TVNZ’s Q+A today, Energy Minister and Dear Leader Mini-Me, Simon Bridges, announced a new law with heavy sanctions against protesters who “want to stop other people going about their lawful business and doing what they have a permit to do and they are legally entitled to do“.
He said, in part,
JESSICA MUTCH I want to start off by asking you your predecessor in a speech, Phil Heatley, said, ‘I’m determined to ensure the mining sector is not hampered by unsafe protest actions by a small but vocal minority.’ You’ve been working on this since taking over. What are protesters in for?
SIMON BRIDGES So, that’s right. So we are acting, and so two offences are going to be put into the Crown Minerals Bill. Look, the first of those is truly criminal offence. Effectively, what it says is that it will be stopping people out there at deep sea, in rough waters, dangerous conditions, doing dangerous acts, damaging and interfering with legitimate business interests with ships, for example, seismic ships, and what they’re doing out there.
JESSICA What fines are we talking about there?
SIMON Well, for that one, 12 months’ imprisonment, or $1000 (please note: the minister meant $100,000 not $1000) or $50,000 fine, depending on whether you’re a body corporate or an individual. Then a lesser, more infringement offence, really, strict liability offence for entering within a specified area, probably up to 500 metres within that ship, again because of the dangers associated with doing that.
Acknowledgement: TVNZ: Q+A – Transcript Simon Bridges Interview
Petrobras has already been involved in oil-spills elsewhere in the world,
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Acknowledgement: TV3 – Brazilian oil spill draws attention to drilling in New Zealand
It’s little wonder that East Coast locals and environmental activists joined together to protest against deep-sea drilling of their coast. The Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010 was a clear warning what the potential was for an environmental catastrophe – one that we are simply unprepared for, as the grounding of the MV Rena showed, eighteen months later.
For Simon Bridges to now threaten future protestors with heavy fines and prison sentences has the hallmarks of a nasty, petty, authoritarian government that is afraid of it’s own people.
Never mind Labour’s so-called “Nanny State” that National complained about in 2007 and 2008 – this has the hallmarks of a quasi-fascist state.
This is a desperate, shabby thing that Bridges is doing.
[See more at The Daily Blog]
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5. Solar power, water conservation, irrigation…
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Acknowledgement: The Hindu Business Line – Now, Gujarat to cover Narmada canals with solar panels!
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Last week, he inaugurated a 600-MW solar power project spread across 11 districts. This included a 214MW Solar Power Park, the largest such generation centre at a single location in Asia. Also, Azure Power, leading independent power producer in solar sector, announced a 2.5 MW rooftops project in Gandhinagar.
Gujarat, which invests nearly Rs 2,000 crore an year on renewable energy, has attracted investments of Rs 9,000 crore so far on solar energy projects.
The pilot project has been developed on a 750-m stretch of the canal by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation (GSECL) with support from Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), which owns and maintains the canal network.
Acknowledgement: IBID
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The pilot project will generate 16 lakh units of clean energy per annum and also prevent evaporation of 90 lakh litres of water annually from the canal, an official told Business Line here on Monday. The concept will, therefore, tackle two of the challenges simultaneously by providing energy and water security.
Acknowledgement: IBID
That’s what India – a Third World/Developing nation – is doing.
Why can’t New Zealand do something as bold; as imaginative; and as environmentally-sustainable as our Indian cuzzies? What’s stopping New Zealand from living up to it’s Clean & Green image?
Oh, yeah. I forgot.
This guy,
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Previous related blogposts
Corporate Welfare under National
Anadarko: Key playing with fire
Petrobras withdraws – sanity prevails
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2013 – The Year of The Big Dry – Part Rua
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Continued from: 2013 – The Year of The Big Dry
Looking south from the Kennedy-Good Bridge (Fairway Drive),
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The river, looking south. Don’t be fooled by the width of the water-flow, as subsequent photos will show,
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Looking down from the bridge, the shallowness of the river is clearly apparent. Note the six stones in the middle of the river,
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A close-up of the the six stones. They are breaking the surface of the water,
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Looking north again, toward the Tararua mountains. The sky is mostly clear, and what few clouds there are, show little promise of water,
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Away from the river, the nearby Avalon Park is parched. Again, it looks like something that our Aussie cuzzies might be more familiar with,
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Another angle of the Park. Curiously, the park is devoid of it’s duck population. Normally, there are hundreds of the feathered critters all over the place. But this blogger couldn’t find one. Only a couple of dozen seagulls – eternal scavengers and survivors – were standing around, waiting for a free meal from a few people in the park,
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Moving north, at the Totara Park Bridge, this horse paddock was as parched as Avalon Park,
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The river flowing under the Torara Park bridge, with parched river banks to either side,
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The river, looking north, toward the Tararuas. Again, don’t let the width of the river fool you – it’s actually quite shallow. Note the patch of rocks, left-of-center, and the one rock in the vcenter of the photo. They are breaking the water surface,
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A close-up of the photo above, showing stones in the middle of the river breaking the surface,
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The river level is so low that even the river bank plant life is parched,
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Looking south, it’s easy to see how far the rive has dropped. In some places it’s more like a stream than the Hutt River we’re used to,
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By comparison, the Hutt River as it normally is,
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Acknowledgement: Tourism Properties
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Acknowledgement: The Valley Club
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*** Newsflash***
The entire north island is now officially in drought. See: Drought status for entire North Island.
Our household is supporting local the call from the Greater Wellington Council to cut back on water usage. Specifically,
- not washing the car (yay!)
- stopped watering our vege garden or lawn
- short showers – less than 5 minutes
- cutting back on washing machine usage
- only flushing the toilet when necessary; “if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down“
- giving dirty dishes and utensils a quick rinse in a bucket (containing water and detergent) and putting aside to wash in one big lot
- not running water when brushing our teeth
- preparing meals that require minimal water usage
When we’re faced with 20 days of water left – it focuses the mind not to waste the precious stuff. (See: Wellington has ’20 days of water left’ in drought)
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Copyright (c) Notice
All images are freely available to be used, with following provisos,
- Use must be for non-commercial purposes.
- Where purpose of use is commercial, a donation to Child Poverty Action Group is requested.
- At all times, images must be used only in context, and not to denigrate individuals.
- Acknowledgement of source is requested.
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2013 – The Year of The Big Dry
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NZ, Wellinton, 13 March 2013 - In 2011, it was the Year of the Big Chill, as snow blanketed the entire country.
Two years later, as climate change impacts globally, New Zealand is no longer immune to extreme weather patters. In the Hutt Valley, just north of Wellington, the Hutt River’s levels are significantly lower than seen in a long time.
The following photos were taken on the Hutt River, from Avalon to Totara Park …
Hutt River, adjacent to the Moonshine Bridge, looking north. The river level normally swirls around bridge pillars in the foreground. The pool in the foreground is usually part of the river flow,
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Stagnant pools, covered by green slime-algae, where only a few months ago the river flowed,
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Looking north, we see how far water levels have receded,
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Looking south, most of the Hutt River at this point is dry rockbed,
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An overview from a higher vantage point. The river flow normally reaches all four concrete pillars of the rail-bridge,
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The width of the river at this point is mis-leading; the water is extremely shallow. The water level reached to a swimmer’s (not in image) hip’s at the deepest point,
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Looking north, on the Moonshine Bridge. Half the river is dry,
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A view from beneath the Silverstream railbridge (parallel to the Moonshine bridge), with a view of a mainly dry part of the river,
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Looking north: at Avalon, part of the rivebank. Despite being close to the Hutt River, the grass is all dried and dying,
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The grass was so brown and dry, it reminded me of Australia, where “The Sunburnt Country” is a literal description,
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Looking northward; the Hutt River at Avalon. The water waters are at extreme low-levels. Just how low will become apparent in the next few photos,
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Looking north; the width of the river is illusory. Note the seagulls to the left-of-center in the photos,
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A close-up of the gulls. They’re standing in the water, indicating how shallow it is,
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The river curves around and under the Kennedy-Good Bridge (Fairway Drive). Note the tyre just off-centre, to the right, in the photo,
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A close-up of the above photo. Note the tyre? It’s not floating – it’s sitting on stones. That indicates the low level of the river,
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Looking north; seagulls standing in the water; tyre sitting on stones (bottom of photo) and Avalon TV Centre, near top of pic,
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To be continued: 2013 – The Year of The Big Dry – Part Rua
*** Newsflash***
The entire north island is now officially in drought. See: Drought status for entire North Island.
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Copyright (c) Notice
All images are freely available to be used, with following provisos,
- Use must be for non-commercial purposes.
- Where purpose of use is commercial, a donation to Child Poverty Action Group is requested.
- At all times, images must be used only in context, and not to denigrate individuals.
- Acknowledgement of source is requested.
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National caught out over Solid Energy – changes story on coal prices, debt, and other matters
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When Solid Energy’s financial crisis became public on 21 February 2013, Bill English, Tony Ryall, and John Key were quick to apportion blame. Their high-paid (by the taxpayer) media strategists had done their dirty work.
They blamed;
- Solid Energy mis-reading trends in coal prices
- The previous Labour government
- The Board and management of Solid Energy
- The Global Financial Crisis
- Mrs Teagle, the tea-lady
- Sunspots
Everyone was to blame. National’s hands were clean. The world is a bad place.
So, let’s go through the points above.
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1. Solid Energy mis-reading trends in coal prices
One of National’s constant lines - in an attempt to smear Solid Energy’s Board as incompetant – was the SOE’s inability to “read trends in world prices for coal”.
As Dear Leader, John Key said on 25 February,
Asked at his post-cabinet press conference why Solid Energy was in such dire straits, he said its directors grossly over-estimated what they thought coal would be worth.
“They got it completely and utterly wrong, and up to the middle of 2012 they still rejected the international view of where coal was likely to go,” he said.
Source: Solid Energy got coal price wrong: Key
On 21 February, Little Leader, Bill English said,
“World coal prices have dropped significantly which has contributed to the deteriorating financial position that Solid Energy is in now.
“These discussions are required because the position of the state-owned enterprise has continued to deteriorate despite the restructuring that has already taken place,” Mr English says.
Source: Bill English & Tony Ryall – Statement on Solid Energy
And as Baby Leader, Tony Ryall also said on 21 February,
State-owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall said a number of factors had weighed against the company, in particular world coal prices dropping by 40 per cent.
“It is facing very serious financial challenges,” Ryall said.
Source: Debt-laden Solid Energy talking to banks
So the narrative being spread by senior National ministers was that Solid Energy was incompetant and couldn’t understand world coal price trends.
Which, for a company that lives, breathes, and farts coal seemed… unlikely.
#1 – Rebutted
But then, on 13 March, Bill English was reported on Radio New Zealand with this statement,
But Finance Minister Bill English says it wasn’t clear that coal prices were declining, and the Government can’t be held responsible for how much debt Solid Energy eventually took on.
Source: Labour says Govt forced Solid Energy to borrow more
Okay… so despite Key, English, and Ryall insisting that Solid Energy had mis-read trends in global coal prices, he is now saying that “it wasn’t clear that coal prices were declining”?!
Well, I’m glad that’s been cleared up.
After all, it’s not like National was initially claiming that world coal prices [were] dropping by 40 per cent to make Solid Energy’s board look bad – and then suggested it wasn’t clear that coal prices were declining for National to save their own arses.
That would be… contradictory.
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2. The previous Labour government
National has blamed the previous Labour government for everything, from the decline of the British Empire, to the sinking of the Titanic. (And trying to pin both World Wars on Labour – but that’s a work-in-progress.)
On 26 February, Key said,
“They can’t wash their hands of the fact that from 2003 on, they were intimately involved with the plans that that company had,” Mr Key said.
On 13 March, English said,
At the time, it was not clear that coal prices were declining. In fact, the best advice from the company—with which the Government ended up disagreeing—was that coal prices would continue to rise. But, as I said, that decision was made in the context of the mess that the previous Labour Government left with the State-owned enterprises.
Source: Parliament Questions and Answers – March 13
Ah, the inhumanity of it all… The dastardly tentacles of a previous government, from four years ago, reaches into the present day to thwart National’s good works. It’s amazing that with such power, that Labouir ever managed to lose two elections in succession, from 2008…
One has to wonder though… is National really so powerless? If so, why are they in government?
#2 – Rebutted
In a rather strange moment of open honesty, Tony Ryall had this to say about Labour’s administration of SOEs, on 27 February,
Hon TONY RYALL: No, I am not going to launch some sort of independent investigation into the governance of Solid Energy. The governance of Solid Energy, much of which was appointed under the previous Labour Government, was running that company and it was doing very well up until 2011. We had the scoping study. It identified a number of issues. And I agree with Trevor Mallard: the collapse of world coal prices is a most significant factor in this matter.
Source: Parliament Questions for oral answer: 5. Solid Energy—Former Chief Executive
And a few days later, on 2 March of this year, Key let slip,
”On the face of it, at least what it had was rising profits. It had a situation where its valuation was going up, it had bankers lending it money, and it had an investment stream that had been set in place by the previous Labour Government,” Mr Key told BusinessDay.
Source: Solid Energy bail-out cost likely to rise
Really?
A look at the profits and dividends paid during Labour’s administration bear out their prudent management of SOEs. And confirmed by Tony Ryall and John Key.
In Labour’s entire eight years, not one single SOE suffered a financial collapse of the magnitude of Solid Energy – and Cullen was still posting surpluses, year after year. And paying down government debt. And finding time to play with his grandkids.
The Nats are in office for four years – and they lose a SOE on their watch?
How does that work?
Especially when, as Adam Bennett reported in the Herald on 13 March,
Mr Shearer later said Solid Energy had responded to the Government’s call, “returning $130 million over four years, including $30 million in late 2011 by which time coal prices had further declined and the company was in financial distress“.
He also pointed to the company’s increase in borrowing over that period, rising from $13 million in 2009 to $191 million the following year and $313 million by 2012.
See: Govt accused of milking Solid Energy for dividends
By contrast, the previous Labour government, took only $64.4 million as a dividend to the to the Crown – over an eight year period. (See: Government defends Solid Energy payouts)
Which still baffles me as to why New Zealanders still have this misconception that National are “prudent fiscal managers” of the economy.
Personally, I wouldn’t let the buggers run a sausage sizzle outside Pak’n'Save.
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3. The Board and management of Solid Energy
National’s culture of blaming others for their own mistakes is slowly but surely building in the public consciousness. (See previous blogposts: Taking responsibility, National-style, Dear Leader Key blames everyone else for Solid Energy’s financial crisis) It has become de rigueur for National to immediately seek out, and blame others, for one of their cock-ups.
And when one minister – Kate Wilkinson – resigned immediatly upon the release of the report from the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, it was seen for what it was; tokenism. And a strategic attempt to close down (or minimise) media scrutiny of National’s de-regulation in the 1990s, which led inevitably to a culture of poor safety in our mining industry.
Practically every public comment by National has directly, indirectly, or in a covert fashion, attempted to sheet blame for Solid Energy’s financial crash on it’s Board and CEO, Don Elder.
Key even suggested – po-faced – that the SOE was practically out of control. On 25 February, Dear Leader stated,
While the New Zealand government was unwilling to back Solid Energy in that role, it appears to have been powerless to prevent the company from taking what Key described as “baby steps” towards such a future.
Source: Govt blocked grandiose Solid Energy plans in 2009
“The company did have the right to draw down debt and make investments without shareholder authority” up to a certain level, Mr Key says.
Source: Govt blocked grandiose Solid Energy plans in 2009
So, can someone remind me again – what, precisely, is the role of the Minister for State Owned Enterprises?
#3 – Rebutted
The above was nothing less than an attempt at total abdication of responsibility by Key and his Ministers. As an incredibly insightful Dominion Post editorial of 2 March stated,
There are always excuses when a company starts to fail. John Key’s explanation for the trouble at Solid Energy, however – he blamed the Labour government – was pitiful.
It was Trevor Mallard’s fault, apparently, for encouraging SOEs to spread their wings and fly. That was in 2007 or 2008.
This won’t do, and not just because Mr Key’s Government has been in power for more than four years. His argument also contradicts itself. A Labour government was seemingly omnipotent and could have its way with the state-owned coal company. But National had no such power.
The Government certainly said no when Solid Energy asked for a billion dollars to turn itself into a super-company along the lines of Petrobras, the Brazilian giant. Mr Key says it had grave doubts about the company’s expansion plans. His political opponents point out that he and Bill English had publicly backed Solid Energy’s big plans for lignite conversion and briquetting.
So what was really going on? Mr Key says the company didn’t require the Government’s approval for the investments. Nor did the Government have a good reason to sack the board, as it could have done under the SOE legislation. So: nothing to see here, apparently.
If all these excuses were valid, it would be hard to know how any government could be held to account for what its state-owned companies were doing. Mr Key’s Government cannot get off so lightly. Nor can his officials. It is unclear just what kind of “monitoring” Treasury was doing, but it obviously wasn’t effective.
Source: Editorial: Solid Energy excuses fuel anger
And then, on 13 March – the bombshell,
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So now we’re getting at the answers.
Now we’re starting to build up a clearer picture as to not how Solid Energy got into debt – but why.
As with most things, the anwer is simple.
National needed cash to balance it’s books by 2014/15. Not content to flog off state assets to raise x-billion dollars, it used Solid Energy as as cash cow, to extract maximum dividends.
Just as Brierleys extracted maximum dividends from Air New Zealand in 2001, stripping the airline of it’s cash reserves in the process and bankrupting it. (see previous blogpost: A Clear Warning to Investors in SOEs)
More importantly, it used Solid Energy as a front to borrow.
If a government borrows cash, it shows up on their balance books as a liability.
If a SOE borrows cash; then pays it to a government as a “dividend”, it shows up on the books as a profit.
That was why National was forcing Solid Energy to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars and then demanding it to be paid into government coffers as a “dividend”.
My immediate thoughts on this are,
- All three ministers – Key, English, and Ryall – should appear before the Commerce Select Committee to answer questions. To this blogger, there appears to be serious implications of questionable behaviour by National Ministers and their dealings with Solid Energy.
- There is more to come out on this isssue, such as why Solid Energy’s Board allowed this cash-stripping by National Ministers to be carried out.
- And this is the most important: I think every New Zealander who is considering investing in Mighty River Power – and other SOE shares – should look very carefully at their books. The question has to be asked; have National Ministers done the same thing to other SOES? Are they also heavily “geared” (borrowed against assets) and highly vulnerable to market downturns?
- The auditor-general, or some other forensic accounting firm, should immediatly be called in to to assess the books of all SOES.
At this point in time, I wouldn’t touch a single share of any SOE, with bio-hazard gloves.
They may be financially toxic.
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References
Fairfax media: Debt-laden Solid Energy talking to banks (21 Feb 2013)
Building a Brighter Future: Bill English & Tony Ryall – Statement on Solid Energy (21 Feb 2013)
Scoop: Govt blocked grandiose Solid Energy plans in 2009 (25 February 2013)
MSN News: Solid Energy got coal price wrong: Key (25 February 2013)
TV3: Govt, Labour squabble over Solid Energy (26 Feb 2013)
Otago Daily Times: Solid Energy bail-out cost likely to rise (2 March 2013)
Dominion Post: Editorial: Solid Energy excuses fuel anger (2 March 2013)
Southland Times: Government defends Solid Energy payouts (12 March 2013)
Radio NZ: Labour says Govt forced Solid Energy to borrow more (13 March 2013)
NZ Herald: Govt accused of milking Solid Energy for dividends (13 March 2013)
Parliament: Questions for oral answer: Ministers—Confidence (13 March 2013)
Parliament: Parliament Questions and Answers (13 March 2013)
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012 – inequality & poverty
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises..
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Inequality & Poverty
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The rhetoric:
“You can measure a society by how it looks after its most vunerable, once I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.
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Yet, also, you can measure a society by how many vulnerable people it creates – people who are able to work, and able to take responsibility for their own lives and their children’s lives, yet end up depending long-term on the State.” – John Key, 28 November 2006
See: Speech to North Shore National Party luncheon
“My father died when I was young. My mother was, for a time, on the Widow’s Benefit, and also worked as a cleaner. But the State ensured that I had a roof over my head and money for my mother to put food on the table. It also gave me the opportunity to have a good education. My mother made sure I took that opportunity, and the rest was up to me.” – John Key, 30 Jan 2007
See: The Kiwi Way: A Fair Go For All
“I have said before that I believe in the welfare state and that I will never turn my back on it. We should be proud to be a country that looks after its most vulnerable citizens. We should be proud to be a country that supports people when they can’t find work, are ill, or aren’t able to work. ”- John Key, 30 Jan 2007
See: IBID
“When Sir Ed climbed Mt Everest back in 1953, he wasn’t the only New Zealander on top of the world. We all were. We were among the five wealthiest countries on earth. Not any more.
Fifty-five years on, we are no longer an Everest nation. We are among the foothill nations at the base of the OECD wealth mountain. Number 22 for income per person, and falling.
But what does a wealth ranking matter, you might ask? Why does it matter if we’re number 22 or number four?
It matters because at number 22 your income is lower, you have to work harder, and you can save less. You face more uncertainty when things go wrong, when you or your family get sick or lose a job. No New Zealand sports team would be happy to be number 22. Why is the Government?
This is a great country. But it could be so much greater. It has been so much greater.
So the question I’m asking Kiwi voters is this: Do you really believe this is as good as it gets for New Zealand? Or are you prepared to back yourselves and this country to be greater still? National certainly is.
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So, make no mistake: this election won’t be fought only on Labour’s economic legacy. National will be asking Labour to front up on their social legacy, too. Many of the social problems the Government said it would solve have only got worse.
This time a year ago, I talked about the underclass that has been allowed to develop in New Zealand. Labour said the problem didn’t exist. They said there was no underclass in New Zealand.
But who now could deny it? 2007 showed us its bitter fruits. The dramatic drive-by shooting of two-year-old Jhia Te Tua, caught in a battle between two gangs in Wanganui. The incidence of typhoid, a Third World disease, reaching a 20-year high. The horrific torture and eventual death of three-year-old Nia Glassie. The staggering discovery of a lost tribe of 6,000 children who are not enrolled at any school.
The list goes on and on. The fact is, that under Labour, there has been no let-up in the drift to social and economic separatism.
We don’t need more of their hand-wringing, their strategies, and their interdepartmental working groups. What’s needed is the courage to make the tough calls to fix these problems.” – John Key, 29 January 2008
See: A Fresh Start for New Zealand
“I’m a product of the welfare state – there hasn’t been any great secret about that.” – John Key, 27 Aug 2011
See: ‘Socialist streak’ just means we have a heart, says Key
The results:
Interestingly, whilst Key’s 2008 speech (A Fresh Start for New Zealand) started off describing New Zealand’s growing underclass, National’s Dear Leader went on to describe a series of punitive actions that his Administration would undertake, if elected to power.
The following sub-headings in Key’s speech are illuminating,
- Youth Plan (education, youth crime)
- Youth Guarantee (education, training, universal educational entitlement, threat of benefit sanctions)
- Youth Justice (extending Youth Court; tougher sentences for youth offenders; new Youth Court orders)
- New powers for the Youth Court
- First, the power to issue parenting orders.
- Secondly, the power to refer young offenders to mentoring programmes.
- Thirdly, the power to refer young offenders to compulsory drug or alcohol rehabilitation programmes.
- Tougher sentences
- The first is longer residential sentences.
- In addition, National will fund a new type of programme for teenagers who aren’t bad enough to be put in a youth justice facility but who need a serious dose of intervention.
- National will fund a new range of revolutionary ‘Fresh Start Programmes’. (boot camps)
- Finally, we think the Youth Court needs better teeth for following up serious youth offenders when they are released back into the community.
This was John Key’s “vision” of a “Fresh Start for New Zealand”; more punitive action against youth offenders – but precious little to address the root causes of youth crime; poverty, lack of jobs, poor housing, worsening health, lack of training and apprenticeships, etc, etc, etc.
Key’s “solution” was to treat the symptoms of this country’s growing underclass.
So it should be hardly any surprise that those symptoms worsened, and the underclass; prison population; domestic violence; hungry children; poor housing – all grew.
The truly unbelievable aspect to Key’s shonkey speech in 2008 was how comprehensively New Zealand voters sucked it up, en masse. (We seriously need to introduce comprehensive Civics courses in our schools, to teach young New Zealanders how to recognise and deconstruct political BS.)
Tax cuts:
Whichever way we look at it, New Zealand in the last four years has become a more unequal society, and with growing poverty.
The first causal factor was the 2009 and 2010 tax cuts, which gave the most to the highest income earners and most wealthy New Zealanders,
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When, on 1 April 2009, then-Maori Party MP, Rahui Katene asked John Key in Parliament,
“How do low-income New Zealanders benefit from the tax changes introduced today?”
Dear Leader replied,
“They benefit because 630,000 New Zealanders—the New Zealanders who do not have children and who have been relatively low-income New Zealanders, and who got absolutely nothing under the previous Labour Government for 9 years—get $10 a week, or $500 a year. It is a small start, and it will be welcomed.”
See: TheyWorkForYou Blog – Tax Cuts—Implementation
At least Key wasn’t bullshitting us this time; for those on minimum wage up to it was indeed small. Someone on $100,000 would receive two and a half times more than someone on minimum wage.
The following year’s October tax cuts were hardly better – but this time the rate of GST was increased from 12.5% to 15%,
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The impact on low-income families – along with increased costs for medicines (see: Prescription charges to increase), and other user-pays government fees – would be harsh.
Contrary to the NZ Herald’s claim above, the average earner would not be “better off”. The $15 a week “extra” would be quickly swallowed up in rising government charges; medicine prescriptions; increased petrol taxes; and the flow-on inflationary effects throughout the economy.
This was not a “tax switch” – it was a tax-swindle – with the richest making the biggest gains.
Interestingly, ACT’s Roger Douglas – commenting on the 2009 tax cuts – realised that National was having to borrow heavily to finance said tax-cuts,
“Does the Prime Minister agree with Professor Eric Leeper’s statement in the latest Reserve Bank Bulletin that counter-cyclical fiscal policy could actually be counter-productive; if not, why not; if yes, why, then, is he borrowing $1 billion plus interest a year in order to give tax relief of $1 billion?” – Roger Douglas, 1 April 2009
So much for National’s promises in 2008,
“National’s rebalancing of the tax system is self-funding and requires no cuts to public services or additional borrowing.
[...]
This makes it absolutely clear that to fund National’s tax package there is no requirement for additional borrowing and there is no requirement to cut public services.”
Salvation Army Report: The Growing Divide – A state of the Nation Report 2012
This document by the Salvation Army is one of the most insightful and far-reaching analyses of current economic stagnation; political factors; and related social problems. It pulls no punches.
This blogger encourages people to read the Report (it’s written in plain english; very little jargon; and contains excellent data, with references). It should be put into the letterboxes of every home in this country. Click here to link to the report.
[NB: The report was written at a time when unemployment was at 6.3%. Since then it has increased three consecutive Quarters to the current 7.3% (see: Unemployment January 2012 to November 2012.]
Amongst the Report’s findings,
1. Inflation, higher prices, increased GST, raised indirect taxes (eg, fuel taxes), and government charges, have off-set the tax cuts of October 2010.
2. If New Zealand is to return to the historically low rate of unemployment of 3.8% in December 2006, (from the then-figure of 6.3%), we would require 90,000 jobs, in on top of 25,000 to 30,000 jobs required each and every year just to keep up with the growth of the labour force. The figure of 90,000 will have increased as unemployment now stands at 7.3%.
3. The rapid growth in the labour force participation rate of people aged 65+ (from 14.1% in December 2006, to 19.5% in December 2011) has been at the expense of falling employment participation of young people in the 15 – 19 year old age group.
Those in the 15 – 19 year old age group, the Report states, have “borne the brunt of the recession and tightening of the job market”. Unemployment for this group rose from 14.3% in December 2006, to 24.2% in December 2011.
It is also this group targetted by National’s harsh “welfare reforms”, which attempts to blame young people as “work shy” – a ‘double whammy’ from the Global Financial Crisis and a right wing government keen to shift blame for rising unemployment onto powerless victims of the Recession.
4. The numbers of welfare recipients receiving the Domestic Purposes Benefit has also been affected by the Global Financial Crisis and resultant Great Recession. DPB recipients dropped from a peak of approximately 111,000 in late 2003, to 96,000 in mid 2008. Since 2008, and as redundancies increased; unemployment rose; and jobs disappeared, the number reversed. DPB recipients skyrocketed to an all time record of 114,230 benefits by December 2011.
Far from being “bene bludgers” opting for the DPB as a “lifestyle choice” (which is constantly parrotted by ill-informed conservatives and low information voters), solo-parents are as vulnerable to recessionary forces as other workers.
5. In the year to December 2011, average weekly earnings rose a only 2.6% from $991.05 to $1016.95. Taking annual inflation of 1.8% into account, weekly earnings rose by a fractional 0.8%. With increases in rent, fuel tax, and other government charges, that increase will have vanished altogether.
6. The Report gave as an example of unequal wage increases the difference between hourly earnings in the finance sector increasing by $1.01 per hour, from $36.63 per hour in June 2011 to $37.64 in December 2011.
By contrast, the average wage in the traditionally poorly paid accommodation sector increased by only 3 cents an hour from $16.40 to $16.43 per hour.This was a clear illustration of the average hourly earnings of the highest paid sector increasing 2.3 times more than those for lower paid workers.
7. Most of the increase in State benefit payments over the past five years was made as higher spending on New Zealand Superannuation (43% of the increase) and Working for Families (37% of the increase). Approximately 568,000 people were receiving superannuation by June 2011.
This compared to 319,000 of other welfare recipents as at December 2011 – up from 264,500 from December 2006. Welfare numbers were dependent on the economy and increased only because of the impact by the GFC-caused Recession.
8. Food parcels issued to families and people in need doubled from 24,250 in 2006, to 53,360 in 2011. Again, this was in accordance with the advent of the GFC in 2007/08; skyrocketting unemployment; and a lack of job-creation policies by National, once it won the election in late 2008. (John Key admitted to this on 18 October 2011. See: Key admits underclass still growing)
9. Inflation of living costs for 2011 was fractionally higher for Low-Income Household CPI at 2.1% than it was for the All Groups CPIs, at 1.8%. Low-Income Households were more vulnerable to increasing costs such as rent, government charges, and gst increases.
10. The Report correctly predicted that levels of unemployment would rise during 2012, and would negatively impact on growth in wages and salaries of poorest paid workers.
For a full understanding the the Report, it is recommended that people read the document in it’s entirety, as I have abridged and condensed much of the information contained therein.
The Report reinforces anecdotal evidence, facts, and stats, that are already in wide circulation and confirms that jobs, incomes, and those receiving social welfare assistance are all affected by the global downturn over the last four to five years.
After all, John Key uses that very excuse to explain away National’s poor economic performance,
“We did inherit a pretty bad situation with the global financial crisis... ” – John Key, 11 Sept 2011
See: View from the top
Ministry of Social Development: The widening gap: perceptions of poverty and income inequalities and implications for health and social outcomes
In New Zealand, income inequalities have increased since the neo-liberal reforms and benefit cuts of the late 1980s and 1990s, although the rate has slowed this decade (Blakely et al. 2007, Ministry of Social Development 2006, Ministry of Social Development 2007). The New Zealand Living Standards 2004 report showed a million New Zealanders living in some degree of hardship, with a quarter of these in severe hardship. Despite the buoyant economy and falls in unemployment levels, not only was there a slight increase in the overall percentage of those living in poverty between 2000 and 2004, but those with the most restricted living standards had slipped deeper into poverty (poverty defined as exclusion from the minimum acceptable way of life in one’s own society because of inadequate resources) (Ministry of Social Development 2006, 2007).
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This greater income inequality has seen New Zealand move into 18th place out of 25 in the OECD in terms of income inequality from 1982 to 2004 (Ministry of Social Development 2007). Over the preceding two decades New Zealand experienced the largest growth in inequalities in the OECD (2000 figures), moving from two Gini coefficient points below the OECD average to three Gini points above (Ministry of Social Development 2007:45-46). One indication of the impact of these inequalities has been that relative poverty rates, including child poverty rates, have increased.
OECD: Growing Income Inequality in OECD Countries: What Drives it and How Can Policy Tackle it ?
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Over the two decades to the onset of the global economic crisis, real disposable household incomes increased in all OECD countries, by 1.7% a year, on average. In a large majority of OECD countries, household incomes of the top 10% grew faster than those of the poorest 10%, leading to widening income inequality. Differences in the pace of income growth across household groups were particularly pronounced in some of the English-speaking countries, some of the Nordic countries and Israel. In Israel and Japan, real incomes of people at the bottom of the income ladder actually have fallen since the mid-1980s.
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At present, across OECD countries, the average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10%. While this ratio is much lower in the Nordic countries and in many continental European countries, it rises to around 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey and the United States, to a high of 27 to 1 in Chile and Mexico. The Gini coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality that ranges from zero (when everybody has identical incomes) to 1 (when all income goes to only one person), stood at 0.28 in the mid-1980s on average in OECD countries; by the late 2000s, it had increased by some 10%, to 0.31. On this measure, income inequality increased in 17 out of the 22 OECD countries for which data are available (Figure 1, left-hand panel). In Finland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, the Gini coefficient increased by more than 4 percentage points: and only five countries recorded drops, albeit small ones .
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[See also Addendum 2 below.]
So it’s official – the Great Experiment in free market reforms from the mid 1980s to the late 2000s, has produced growing inequality here in New Zealand. Indeed, the trend has been global,
Income inequality followed different patterns across OECD countries and there are signs that levels may be converging at a common and higher average. Inequality first began to rise in the late 1970s and early 1980s in some Anglophone countries, notably in the United Kingdom and the United States, followed by a more widespread increase from the late 1980s on. The most recent trends show a widening gap between poor and rich in some of the already high-inequality countries, such as Israel and the United States. But countries such as Denmark, Germany and Sweden, which have traditionally had low inequality, are no longer spared from the rising inequality trend: in fact, inequality grew more in these three countries than anywhere else during the past decade. However, some countries recorded declining income inequality recently, often from high levels (Chile, Mexico and Turkey).
It is no coincidence that the trends “first began to rise in the late 1970s and early 1980s in some Anglophone countries, notably in the United Kingdom and the United States” – that is the precise period when Margaret Thatcher won office in May 1979 and Ronald Reagan became US president in January 1981.
Our turn came three years later with the Lange/Douglas government that ushered in “Rogernomnics“.
The OECD report above is simply being ‘coy’ by not connecting-the-dots.
What is more telling? Any person reading this would not be surprised. We have become innured to an unfair economic system which produces unequal outcomes and great disparities in incomes and wealth. As the OECD report states with alarmingly candour,
Increases in household income inequality have been largely driven by changes in the distribution of wages and salaries which account for 75% of household incomes of working-age adults. With very few exceptions (France, Japan and Spain), wages of the 10% best-paid workers have risen relative to those of the 10% least-paid workers. This was due both to growing earnings’ shares at the top and declining shares at the bottom, but top earners saw their incomes rising particularly sharply (Atkinson, 2009). The highest 10% of earners have been leaving the middle earners behind more rapidly than the lowest earners have been drifting away from the middle.
Furthermore, as the OECD report points out, “…more working hours were lost among low-wage than among high-wage earners, again contributing to increasing earnings inequality“.
The OECD report is backed up by Statistics New Zealand,
As with total employment, the drop in full-time employment mainly reflected a decrease in male
full-time employment, which was down 12,000 (down 1.2 percent).
Usual hours worked decreased 0.4 percent – down to 79.6 million hours over the quarter. The
changes in full and part-time employment reflect the fall in the number of hours people usually
work during a week. Over the quarter, the number of hours people actually worked decreased
0.8 percent, down to 73.2 million hours.
See: Household Labour Force Survey: September 2012 quarter
Ministry of Social Development - Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011
Whilst New Zealand has no formal or official measure of poverty or material hardship/deprivation, there are studies and conclusions leading to reports that offer a disquieting insight into the state of income inequality, poverty, and child poverty in our country.
One such report was conducted by Bryan Perry for the Ministry of Social Development in August 2012, entitled the “Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011″ – a 195 page study.
The full report is available here: MSD - Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011
A much-condensed precis of the Report;
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2012 MSD Household Incomes Report – ‘Summary’
- Household incomes BHC (before deducting housing costs) rose in real terms for all income groups from 2007 to 2009, continuing the steady growth that began in 1994,
- Income inequality increased significantly between 1988 to 2004, then fell from 2004 to 2007 as a result of the WFF package, and was still around the same level in 2009 as in 2007,
- Income inequality grew very rapidly from 1988 to 1992, followed by a slower but steady rise through to 2004,
- From 2004 to 2007 inequality fell mainly as a result of the WFF package,
- Median Household incomes fell 3% in real terms after little change (+1%) from HES 2009 to HES 2010,
- This fall followed a long and strong rise in the median from the mid 1990s to 2008-09 averaging 3% pa in real terms. GDP per capita increased at 2.5% pa over this period on averagwe,
- Incomes fell for deciles 3-6, but rose for the top decile especially,
- At the very bottom (P15 down), incomes were flat from HES 2010 to HES 2011 (protected by benefit rates being CPI adjusted and NZS being wage related),
- Inequality decreased significantly from HES 2009 to HES 2010 then rose from HES 2010 to HES 2011 to its highest level ever. This volatility reflects the impact of the GFC,
- On the AHC (HouseHold income after deducting housing costs) moving line measure, the child poverty rate increased from 2007 (22%) to 2009 (25%), reflecting the rise in the proportion of households with children with high ‘outgoings-to-income’ (OTIs),
- The 2009 child poverty rate is almost double the rate that prevailed in the early 1980s,
- In 2009, on the Social Report measure (AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%), there were 230,000 children (22%) below the low-income threshold (ie ‘in poverty’), down from 380,000 (37%) in 2001,
- Hardship rates for children rose from 15% in the 2007 HES to 21% in HES 2011 using the ELSI measure. In part, this reflects the falling incomes of those in deciles 3-6, some of whom may already have been in a precarious financial position – the loss of income has been enough to tip them into hardship even though their incomes are still above the poverty threshold,
- Chronic poverty (as defined in the Incomes Report) is about having an average household income over seven years that is below the poverty threshold over those years. Looking at children in poverty in a HES survey (cross-sectional), 60% of them are in chronic poverty in any survey and 40% in temporary poverty. In addition there are others who are in chronic poverty but not in current poverty in that one year – this group is about 20% of the number in current poverty.
- In 2009, between 460,000 and 780,000 people were in households with incomes below the low-income thresholds (ie ‘in poverty’),
- In 2009, on the Social Report measure (AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%), there were 650,000 (15%) below the low-income threshold (ie ‘in poverty’, down from 930,000 (25%) in 2001,
- In 2009, just over one in three poor children were from households where at least one adult was in full-time employment, down from around one in two before Working for Families (2004),
- Income poverty rates for single person working-age households trebled from the 1980s to 2007 (10% to 30%) and were 35% in 2011. One in 9 poor people and 1 in 4 poor households are from this group. The rates are higher for the older group living on their own (45-64 years) than for the younger group,
- In 2001, 42% of households in the lowest income quintile had high ‘outgoings-to-income’, but this fell to 34% by 2004 reflecting the introduction of income-related rents, and has remained steady since then (33% in 2009),
- In 2009, 37% of children lived in households with high ‘outgoings-to-income’, a rise from 32% in 2007, and 26% in 2004 – the 2004 figure was the lowest proportion for some time, following the introduction of income-related rents in 2001 (when the proportion with high ‘outgoings-to-income’ was 32%),
- In 2009, on the Social Report measure (AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%), there were 650,000 (15%) below the low-income threshold (ie ‘in poverty’, down from 930,000 (25%) in 2001,
- The child poverty rate increased from 2007 (22%) to 2009 (25%), reflecting the rise in the proportion of households with children with high ‘outgoings-to-income’,
- The 2009 child poverty rate is almost double the rate that prevailed in the early 1980s,
- Just over two of every three two parent families were dual earner families in 2009, up from one in two in the early 1980s, but down from nearly three in four in 2004,
- Children in sole parent families have a higher risk of hardship (46%) than those in two parent families (14%). This reflects the relatively low full-time employment rate for sole parents (35% in 2009) - 73% of sole parents were in receipt of a main benefit in 2009,
- The value of New Zealand Superannuation (NZS) fell further below the median household income from 2007 to 2009,
- People living in sole parent households are a relatively small subgroup, making up only 8% of the population. Only 3% of those in sole parent households are found in the top income quintile. On the other hand, a high proportion have incomes in the lower end of the income distribution.
- High housing costs relative to income are often associated with financial stress for low to middle income households. Low-income households especially can be left with insufficient income to meet other basic needs such as food, clothing, transport, medical care and education,
- For the bottom quintile, the proportion with high ‘outgoings-to-income’ reduced from 2001 to 2004 with the introduction of income related rents, then remained steady in 2007 and 2009 at the 2004 level.1 For all but the bottom quintile, the proportion with high housing costs rose strongly from 2004 to 2007. From 2007 to 2009, the situation for the second quintile continued to worsen, such that by 2009, each of the two lower quintiles had one in three households with high ‘outgoings-to-income’,
- From 2007 to 2009, median household incomes (BHC – HH income before deducting housing costs) rose by 4.3% pa in real terms (8.6% in total). This continues the steady growth in the median from the low point in 1994. The AHC (HH income after deducting housing costs) median rose less rapidly (3.2% pa), reflecting the relatively rapid rise in average accommodationcosts,
- The increasing dispersion of household incomes from the 1980s through to 2009 is clear. For the period as a whole, incomes for households above the median increased proportionately much more than did the incomes of households in the lower three deciles,
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In 2009 the incomes of the bottom 30% of the population were on average only a little better in real terms than those of their counterparts two decades earlier in 1988. On the other hand there were more substantial gains in the period for the top half of the distribution. The income distribution is therefore much more dispersed in 2009 than in 1988,
. - The most significant structural change to the income distribution over the two decades from 1984 to 2004 is a significant hollowing out of the middle parts of the distribution from $12,000 to $30,000 (equivalised) and a corresponding increase in the proportion of the population in higher income households. There was also a small increase in the proportion of the population in low-income households in this period. From 2004 to 2007, the impact of the Working for Families package in that period is very clear for low to middle income households.The income distribution was more dispersed in 2004 than in 1984. From 2004 to 2007 income inequality decreased.
- The significant change in shape of the income distribution from 2004 to 2007 reflects two main factors: (A) the impact of the WFF package on low to middle income households and (B) the reduction in the number of people in households whose main source of income is an income-tested benefit (100,000 fewer in 2007 than in 2004)
- As recently as 1996, the government of the time in New Zealand was openly disapproving of any poverty discourse. However, in 2002, in the context of the Agenda for Children, the government made a commitment to eliminate child poverty, and in the Speech from the Throne in November 2005, the Governor-General described the Working for Families package as “the biggest offensive on child poverty New Zealand has seen for decades”. The current National-led government, like the previous Labour-led government, espouses the principle that ‘paid work is the best way to reduce child poverty’. New Zealand does not however have an official poverty measure.
- The rise in moving line child poverty rates from 1990 to 1992 was driven by two factors: the rise in unemployment, and the 1991 benefit rate cuts which decreased real incomes for beneficiaries by a greater amount than the median fell in the period,
- From 1992 to 1998 the 60% of median moving line poverty rate for children fell as unemployment rates fell and incomes for those around the poverty line rose more quickly than the median in the period,
- From 1998 the median continued to grow in real terms, but the incomes of many low-income households with children remained fairly static through to 2004. This meant that the moving line child poverty rate rose to 2004, indicating that low-income households with children were on average further from the median in 2004 than in 1998,
- On the After Housing Costs (AHC) moving line measure, the child poverty rate increased from 2007 (22%) to 2009 (25%), reflecting the rise in the proportion of HouseHolds with children with high OTIs (‘outgoings-to-income’ ratio),
- From 2004 to 2007, the poverty rate fell strongly … for the working poor than for the beneficiary poor. There were no further policy changes to housing assistance from 2007 to 2009 – the maximum rates of assistance remained fixed and did not move in line with movements in housing costs, and net housing expenditure rose for low-income households with children. This is reflected in the rise in child poverty rates from 2007 to 2009 using the moving line AHC approach.
.(Report Note: when a household spends more than 30% of its income on accommodation it is said to have a high “OTI” - ‘outgoings-to-income’ ratio)
The above is a heavily condensed version of Bryan Perry’s report. For a full report, please refer to: Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011
It is fairly clear that income inequality is not only still prevalent – but increasing. The ‘Gini’ does not lie – and the Inequality Factor has risen from 30.2 to 33.5 (the higher the figure, the more inequality).
Child poverty is still with us, and remains New Zealand’s most critical problem (I refuse to call it an “issue”).
Despite John Key’s fine words and stirring rhetoric, National has failed to change it’s core “values” and adheres to a dogmatic faith in the Market to deliver solutions to poverty in our country.
Yet, John Key should know precisely what needs to be done. As he told the nation five years ago,
“My father died when I was young. My mother was, for a time, on the Widow’s Benefit, and also worked as a cleaner. But the State ensured that I had a roof over my head and money for my mother to put food on the table. It also gave me the opportunity to have a good education. My mother made sure I took that opportunity, and the rest was up to me.” – John Key, 30 Jan 2007
See: The Kiwi Way: A Fair Go For All
The State invested heavily in Mr Key – as it did with many other people prior to the Rogernomics roll-backs of the late 1980s – and New Zealand benefitted accordingly from that social investment.
The social welfare system is designed as a safety net for citizens in time of need. Whether through job losses or injury or raising children single-handed, our society – through the State – demands that no one suffers. (Never mind the deranged ravings of the ill-informed on talkback radio.)
However, there is another role for our welfare society; to guarantee that the young from impoverished and vulnerable families are accorded the same opportunities that other, luckier parents can provide for their own children.
This is a country of plenty. There is no reason why we cannot eradicate poverty; poor housing; disease; lack of adequate, nourishing food for all children; and low schooling/training outcomes.
The only reasons that this blogger can see for the perpetuation of poverty is a double curse on our country, namely,
- An irrational prejudice against the poor
- A debilitating lack of will
Until we resolve both of these collective “disabilities” to our vision for a better society, we will continue to reap the rotten fruits of our inaction.
On 28 November 2006, John Key said,
“You can measure a society by how it looks after its most vunerable, once I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.”
I see no evidence of that.
Indeed, six years later, Key admitted that the underclass he spoke of has not diminished,
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Addendum 1
It is interesting and worthwhile to compare the rhetoric of John Key’s speech, A Fresh Start for New Zealand, with the data contained in the Salvation Army report, “The Growing Divide“. Both are worth reading. It rapidly becomes clear how Key cynically mis-represented facts to suit his Party’s election agenda.
Addendum 2
It is worth noting that the GINI Coefficient – which is one method by which to measure income inequality – shows interesting figures for New Zealand,
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Source: OECD Income distribution – Inequality (GINI co-efficient)
A high GINI factor (close to 1 or 100, expressed as a percentage) indicates maximum inequality. A figure at zero indicates absolute income equality.
New Zealand’s GINI Coefficient rose (income became more unequal) from the mid-1980s to around 2000. At the mid-2000s, the GINI Coefficient began to reduce – indicating incomes are becoming less unequal. (Though has not addressed growing poverty in this country.)
What factor intervened in the mid-2000s to stem the rising inequality of incomes?
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The same policy introduced by the preceding Labour Government, which Dear Leader, John Key, once described as “communism by stealth” (see: National accuses Government of communism by stealth) – but by 2008 had decided that he liked “Working for Families” after all (see: National to keep Working for Families unchanged).
After 2010, the GINI coefficient begins to rise again, as effects from our stagnating economy and National’s policies begin to over-take the positive income-redistribution aspects of ‘Working for Families’.
Income inequality in New Zealand is once again on the rise,
Gini scores (x100) for market and disposable household income, 1986 to 2011 (18-64 yrs)
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HES year
Before taxes and transfers (market income)
After taxes and transfers (disposable income)
Reduction (%)
1986
36.4
26.4
27
1991
42.4
31.3
26
1996
43.1
32.9
24
2001
43.1
33.1
23
2004
41.7
32.9
21
2009
40.3
32.3
20
2010
38.3
30.2
21
2011
42.2
33.5
21
Source: MSD - Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011
Additional
Dominion Post: Children need changes now – commissioner
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment – Sunrise, Sunset, and Outlooks
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Sunrise, Sunset, and Outlook for 2013
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“We need businesses producing high-value products for overseas markets and businesses using R&D to develop those products which drives other benefits, like better production processes and marketing. Basically it’s about using innovation to drive our economy.
We have some of these companies already – the likes of Fisher and Paykel, Tait and Rakon. Our world-leading dairy industry also owes much of its success to innovation.” – Jonathan Coleman, Associate Minister of Finance, 1 July 2011
See: EDANZ National Economic Development Forum – Speech Notes
It’s a funny old world we live in…
Sunrise Industries…
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Sex, gambling, tobacco, alcohol – the new profitable industries of the 1st century? We seem to have left out other “growth” industries, the modern sex-slave trade in women and children, and arms manufacturing.
Oh. Wait. Maybe not,
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Oh well, National and it’s free-market fellow-travellers will be delirious with joy. If there’s a buck to be made from vices and weapons, they’ll be happy as a pig in mud.
Now if only they can find the price of a soul, and a market for it…
And the Sun sets on…
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Meanwhile…
“ Basically it’s about using innovation to drive our economy. We have some of these companies already – the likes of Fisher and Paykel, Tait and Rakon. ” - Jonathan Coleman, Associate Minister of Finance, 1 July 2011
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Oh well, one (Tait) out of three still seems a ‘goer’. How long for, I wonder?
Meanwhile, how are our export and related sectors doing?
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And the stats back up the ODT story above,
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Source: New Zealand in Profile: 2012 – Economy
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Not too good it seems. The red-highlighted sectors all declined from 2006 to 2011.
National’s “hands off” doctrine, in deference of the ‘Invisible Hand of the Market’, is certainly achieving one result; giving advantage to our exporting competitors from other nations. The Nats seem resigned (hellbent?) to more job losses; more exporters going under; more skilled tradespeople leaving for Australia; and a further decline ineconomic growth,
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What the hell!? The export sector is a “declining industry“?!?!
When even National’s allies – the Manufacturers and Exporters Association – are calling for government intervention about the high New Zealand dollar, it really drives home the seriousness of the crisis. An economic crisis that this time had it’s origins on Molesworth Street – not Wall Street.
For National to persist in it’s “hands off” and obedience to Free Market dogma will have nasty consequences for our economy.
For 2013, expect,
- unemployment to rise
- the export sector to worsen
- growth to remain low, under 1%
- an early election this coming year, as Dunne and the Maori Party desert the National-led coalition.
It’s easy to predict – we’ve seen it all before.
Previous related blogposts
New Zealand’s OTHER secret shame
New Zealand’s OTHER secret shame – *Update*
NZ’s 21st Century Growth Industries – Drugs, Gambling, & Prostitution
Drugs & Gambling – NZ’s 21st Century Growth Industries?
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: trade
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Trade
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The rhetoric:
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The reality:
In simple terms, we, as a country, have continued to import more than we exported,
2008/09
The trade balance for December 2008/January 2009 was a deficit of $341 million. This compared with a surplus of $38.5 million in December 2007/January 2008. (See: Tradingeconomics – Balance of Trade)
2012
The trade balance for September/October 2012 was a deficit of $718 million. This compared with a deficit of $226 million for September/October 2011. (See: Tradingeconomics – Balance of Trade)
As reported in the NZ Herald on 27 November 2012, the annual deficit increased to $1.37 billion. (See: Trade deficit widens as dairy values fall)
In graph form,
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Source: Tradingeconomics – Balance of Trade
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On top of that, what we did export earned us less with the increasingly high value of the New Zealand dollar,
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Source: Tradingeconomics – New Zealand Dollar
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As Bloomberg wrote in October,
New Zealand’s annual trade deficit swelled to the widest since 2009 as exports fell to a 20-month low amid a decline in dairy shipments and a rising currency.
See: New Zealand’s Annual Trade Deficit Swells to Widest Since 2009 – Bloomberg
The high NZ Dollar not only affects the value of our exports (and thus helps to pay for imports) but has a direct, inescapable impact on our employment,
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Whilst governments around the world were – and still are – manipulating their currencies downward, with several techniques (including “quantitative easing”) National remains wedded to a hands-off policy of allowing the “market” to determine the value of our dollar.
So while we are playing by purist, Market rules – other countries have thrown the rulebook away and doing whatever it takes to boost their economy and create jobs.
The “reward” for National’s obedience to dogma? Massive job losses,
Fears high dollar pushes some firms close to edge
Rakon blames job cuts on high dollar
High dollar blamed for job losses at wool plant
If ever a lesson was needed to illustrate the sheer futility of single-minded perseverance with a failed economic ideology, it is National’s committment to it’s hands-off policy on the New Zealand Dollar.
And yet, when it comes to “sexy” industries, National will climb over broken glass to throw tax-payer subsidies at the likes of “Lord of the Rings“, “The Hobbit“, Rugby World Cup, et al.
Whilst Key will crow about “3,000 people have been employed because of the Hobbit” (see: John Key pushes Hobbit benefit) – meanwhile 40,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since this Government took office in 2008 (see: Loss of work hits hard).
If, by now you are feeling anxious and upset, don’t panic. It simply confirms you are still sane.
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment – the social welfare safety net
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises..
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Social welfare safety net
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The rhetoric:
It started well… National’s bad old image as a “bene-bashing Party, pandering to the ill-educated; the mis-informed; and the downright ignorant, appeared to be a thing of the past.
John Key was a product of a civilised society where social welfare could give kids from the most disadvantaged households a chance to better themselves.
“You can measure a society by how it looks after its most vunerable, once I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.” – John Key, 28 November 2006
See: Speech to North Shore National Party luncheon
” I have said before that I believe in the welfare state and that I will never turn my back on it. We should be proud to be a country that looks after its most vulnerable citizens. We should be proud to be a country that supports people when they can’t find work, are ill, or aren’t able to work.
[...]
My father died when I was young. My mother was, for a time, on the Widow’s Benefit, and also worked as a cleaner. But the State ensured that I had a roof over my head and money for my mother to put food on the table. It also gave me the opportunity to have a good education. My mother made sure I took that opportunity, and the rest was up to me. ” – John Key, 30 Jan 2007
See: The Kiwi Way: A Fair Go For All
Key even seemed to “steal” policies from the centre-left Labour Party,
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Perhaps National, under Key’s leadership, had learnt from it’s mistakes in the 1990s?
No such luck.
The Reality:
As the Global Financial Crisis plunged most of world’s nations (China and Australia being the two lucky exceptions) into recession, the ranks of the unemployted swelled.
As Brian Gaynor, executive director of Milford Asset Management, wrote in the NZ Herald on 18 August 2012,
” At the end of May, the 34-country Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had an unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent.
Nearly 48 million were out of work, 15 million more than when the financial crisis began in 2007.
The unemployment rate continues to rise in the eurozone and is now 11.1 per cent. “
See: Baby boomers clogging the job market
Here in New Zealand, unemployment skyrocketted from 78,000 in late 2007/early 2008, to the current 175,000 – over a doubling in only four years.
That’s 97,000 who had jobs prior to the Global Financial Crisis who are now out of work.
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See: tradingeconomics.com – Unemployment numbers
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If it weren’t for the 114,200 who have migrated to Australia in the same four year period, soaking up thousands of potential jobless New Zealanders, one shudders at the unemployment rate we would now have (see related blogpost: Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: migration ). Thank the mercies for our more affluent, and clever, neighbour.
It’s fairly obvious to all but the most entrenched, bene-bashing, Talkback Radio moron that New Zealand has not escaped the effects of the Global Financial Crisis.
National’s devotion to market-forces has caught Key, English, and Joyce in a trap of their own making. Their dogma dictates that the State “cannot create jobs” – only the Market can do that, as Key stated on several occassions,
“Nothing creates jobs and boosts incomes better than business growth. For New Zealand to build a more productive and competitive economy, we need more innovative companies out there selling their products on the world stage.” – John Key, 24 August 2012
See: Key Notes: Honouring our fallen soldiers
When the “Market” fails to behave as neo-liberal doctrine demands – then there is a problem. National cannot admit that it’s free market policies have failed. (It took the Russians seventy years to finally concede that their centralised market policy had failed them.)
For the National politburo, who cannot concede Market failure, there must be another reason why jobless numbers are increasing – not decreasing. It must be the fault of those on welfare. The unemployed must be to blame, as the Market is never, ever wrong.
Accordingly, from early-2011 onward, National began a concerted campaign against those receiving welfare assistance. It was a vicious, de-humanising, de-moralising campaign against those whose only “crime” was,
- having lost their jobs,
- had little access to training or apprenticeship,
- raising children on their own,
- were sick, injured, or disabled
From 2011, we started seeing headlines like these in our media,
Food parcel families made poor choices, says Key (17 Feb 2011)
Baby turns one, so get to work mum (6 June 2011)
Revealed: $100k-plus beneficiary homes (13 June 2011)
Single mum on DPB for decades (20 Sept 2011)
Minister spells out $43,000 ‘salary’ claim for solo mum (21.2.2012)
Beneficiary contraception plan ‘intrusive’ (8 May 2012)
Benefits may be linked to kids’ jabs (12 May 2012)
And if local bene-bashing stories weren’t sufficient to drive home the agenda of demonising this sector of society, National and it’s media corporate-whores could always rely on some excellent shock-value stories from overseas,
Man who fathered 30 kids says he needs a break – on child support (21 May 2012)
This next one was very popular at Federated Farmers – that well-known bastion of liberal sensibilities. The way that Bill English played his audience of cow-cockies and sheep-herders, with a barely-disguised smirk on his face, spoke volumes…
Drug tests for more beneficiaries mooted (28 June 2012)
Benefit cuts for drug users defended by PM (2 July 2012)
Said Paula Bennett,
“There’s two words we don’t use often enough in this country and that’s self-responsibility. The size of someone’s family is their business, so long as they don’t expect someone else to pay for it.”
So saith the woman who was on the DPB; had free taxpayer funded tertiary education; gave up her part-time job at the time because it was “too hard”; and had WINZ assistance to buy her own home…
Big families mean big welfare dollars (15 July 2012)
Bennett increases pursuit of welfare ‘rorts’ (23 July 2012)
Beneficiaries on warrants face cash cut (6 Sept 2012)
Kidnappers among targets in benefit plan (7 Sept 2012)
And to really, really make sure we’ve been paying attention to this Nazi-style demonisation propaganda,
Beneficiaries cost $130,000 over lifetime (12 Sept 2012)
And in case we missed it first time, Fairfax gave the political dagger-in-beneficiaries-backs another good, hard, twist,
Beneficiaries’ bill $78 billion (12 Sept 2012)
Though Bill English promised, hand-on-heart, that this was not an exercise in “bene bashing,
Benefit tally ‘not an excuse for hard line’ (13 Sept 2012)
Then the Nats came up with the idea of a law change of “one strike and you’re out” for welfare beneficiaries who turned down any “suitable” job offer from July 2013. Which would be laughable, because both Key and Bennett have conceded that there simply aren’t enough jobs for everyone.
So what would be the point of a “one strike and you’re out” for the unemployed, except to paint them as “work shy” and “lazy”?
Propaganda. Nasty stuff.
‘One strike’ rule for beneficiaries (18 Sept 2012)
Funny thing… the media never compared welfare beneficiaries entitlements with that of politicians. How many beneficiaries get free air-travel for the rest of their lives for themselves and their spouses? Or a gold-plated superannuation scheme none of us are entitled to?
Those were just some of the media stories and headlines that assaulted our sensibilities and attempted to paint the unemployed – the victims of the GFC – as “bene bludgers”.
All because National could not cope with the growing numbers of Kiwis losing their jobs, and had no plan to address growing unemployment.
So default to Setting ‘B’: Blame the Benes.
When Key stated that the most recent jobless stats – 7.3% unemployed - had “come as a bit of a surprise” (see: Unemployment surges to 13-year high ), he obviously had not been paying attention to yearly figures from New Zealand Statistics.
Jobless numbers had ‘only’ been rising since the beginning of 2012,
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Source: Trading Economics – Unemployment
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The scary headlines above were only partially offset by other media stories of New Zealand’s increasingly visible ‘underbelly’. Poverty was no longer staying behind closed doors, away from “polite society”,
Hungry kids scavenge pig slops (11 May 2012)
Welfare rejig carries whiff of hypocrisy (12 May 2012)
Stuck for ideas, Govt preys on powerless (13 May 2012)
The same hate-campaign was being conducted overseas,
Hatred of those on benefits is dangerously out of control (18 May 2012)
No food, no shoes and kids kept home (23 May 2012)
Government Policy Impacting Child Poverty Levels (30 May 2012)
And then we came to the attention of the United Nations. Quasi-nazism – not exactly the “cool look” we want for New Zealand and it’s tourism industry,
Struggling families borrow to buy food (21 July 2012)
UN urges Govt reforms to not target beneficiaries (2 Aug 2012)
Principal wants taxpayers to fund breakfast scheme (12 Aug 2012)
Ministry memo critical of plan to drug test beneficiaries (17 Aug 2012)
Govt has caused ‘incredible shift of wealth’ – CTU (24 Aug 2012)
Playing politics is not helping kids (26 Aug 2012)
Even multi-millionaire, Gareth Morgan, had to state the bloody obvious for those voters who were still less-than-fully-brain-functional,
Bennett accused of dehumanising beneficiaries (6 Sept 2012)
Precious little sense on Planet Paula (17 Sept 2012)
Belt tightening won’t reduce unemployment (23 Sept 2012)
Experts lament state of NZ child poverty (24 Sept 2012)
And when the Nats did try to address a social problem, the result would have been comical – had the issue of murdered children reminded us what was at stake,
Child-abuse funds ‘blown on hype’ (1 Dec 2012)
Social welfare – the stats:
From the Ministry of Social Development’s website;
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Numbers of working-age clients1 receiving main benefits at the end of September, 2002 – 2012
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|
End of quarter |
Unemployment Benefits 2 | Domestic Purposes Benefits 3 |
Sickness Benefits 4 |
Invalid’s Benefits | Other main benefits 5 | All main benefits |
| September 2002 |
112,147 |
109,078 |
37,275 |
64,596 |
21,613 |
344,709 |
| September 2003 |
94,527 |
109,366 |
40,802 |
68,361 |
19,366 |
332,422 |
| September 2004 |
65,764 |
109,021 |
44,110 |
4,067 |
17,624 |
308,158 |
| September 2005 |
50,153 |
105,692 |
46,067 |
73,813 |
16,440 |
292,165 |
| September 2006 |
41,027 |
100,579 |
47,527 |
75,988 |
17,026 |
282,147 |
| September 2007 |
23,158 |
96,673 |
48,995 |
78,268 |
16,140 |
263,234 |
| September 2008 |
23,273 |
98,473 |
48,208 |
83,618 |
16,036 |
269,608 |
| September 2009 |
60,660 |
107,658 |
56,384 |
85,015 |
17,094 |
326,811 |
| September 2010 |
65,281 |
112,765 |
58,661 |
85,305 |
16,200 |
338,212 |
| September 2011 |
55,661 |
114,147 |
58,651 |
84,524 |
15,513 |
328,496 |
| September 2012 |
50,390 |
110,738 |
59,595 |
83,570 |
16,649 |
320,942 |
Notes:
1 This report defines working-age clients as aged 18 – 64 years, to reflect the minimum age of entitlement of most benefits and the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation.
2 Comprises Unemployment Benefits and Unemployment Benefits – Hardship.
3 Comprises Domestic Purposes Benefits – Sole Parent, Domestic Purposes Benefits – Care of Sick or Infirm, Domestic Purposes Benefits – Women Alone, and Emergency Maintenance Allowances.
4 Comprises Sickness Benefits and Sickness Benefits – Hardship.
5 Comprises Emergency Benefits, Independent Youth Benefits, Youth Payments, Young Parent Payments, Unemployment
Benefits – Training, Unemployment Benefits – Hardship – Training, Unemployment Benefits – Student Hardship, Widow’s Benefits, and (until April 2004) Transitional Retirement Benefits. Youth Payments and Young Parent Payments replaced Independent Youth Benefits from August 2012.
Source: MSD – September 2012
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Graph shows the rise in the total number of people receiving a main benefit through to 1994, the further rise through to 1999, the steady decline to June 2008, and the rise through to June 2009 reflecting the recession and the international financial crisis. Numbers in receipt of the unemployment benefit follow a trend that is a rough mirror image of the employment rate. The rising red line, signifying Sickness/Invalid beneficiaries is linked to ACC discharging it’s clients onto welfare, to make their own books “look good”.
Source: Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011
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Correlation between Global Financial Crisis, leading to NZ recession, leading to higher unemployment. (For the benefit of low-information National Party voters.)
Source: IBID
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The above data yields three interesting observations;
#1 Beneficiary numbers mirror Global Financial Crisis
Unsurprisingly, the numbers receiving social welfare benefits shot up just after the Global Financial Crisis hit New Zealand’s economy, impacting on employment. The effects of the GFC continue to this day to create redundancies and unemployment throughout the country.
Low-information voters and the lunatic right-wing fringe element in our society maintain the fantasy that welfare is a “lifestyle choice”, where beneficiaries are attracted by “big money” paid out in benefits.
Not only are welfare payments usually abysmally low (just barely sufficient to survive on) – but the stats above clearly show the correlation between the GFC and rising beneficiary recipients.
There were 51,334 more people receiving welfare benefits in September 2012 than there were in September 2008. This increase can be sheeted home to,
- the Global Financial Crisis destroying jobs,
- National’s lack of proactive job creation policies helping to push up unemployed numbers,
- ACC’s policies with regards to to injured and sick (see below).
Such is the folly of relying on the “Market” to deliver jobs.
Such is the hypocrisy of Bennett, Key, English, Joyce, et al, who blame welfare beneficiaries for being out of work – and threatening them with all manner of sanctions.
#2 Overall beneficiaries are down
Surprisingly, those receiving welfare benefits up to September 2012 still number 23,767 fewer than September 2002. Overall beneficiary numbers are not increasing anywhere as much as what Paula Bennett, John Key, and their right wing fellow-travellers are insisting.
There are two possible reasons for this.
Firstly, 114,200 (net) New Zealanders left our shores for Australia from 2009 to 2012 (see previous blogpost: Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: migration). Many left to find work overseas. These migrants might have added to unemployed and solo-parent welfare recipient numbers, had they stuck around here in New Zealand.
Secondly, see #3 below.
#3 Unemployment Benefits vs Household Labourforce Survey Unemployed
It is a ‘quirk’ of New Zealand’s welfare system that married or de facto couples cannot receive welfare assistance if one should loose his/her job, but the other remains in paid work.
On the other hand, two people not in a relationship (eg; flatting in the same house), are eligible for welfare should one become unemployed and the other remains in-work.
There seems no logic to this contradictory situation and is even more unfair when one considers that the married/de facto couple both paid taxes, prior to one losing his/her job. That’s New Zealand’s bizarre welfare rules for you.
Which may explain why those receiving Unemployment Benefits from WINZ numbered 50,390 in September 2012 – whilst the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) recorded 175,000 unemployed people (see: Household Labour Force Survey: September 2012 quarter).
WINZ records only those paid an Unemployment Benefit.
The HLFS records everyone, within a more inclusive criteria, irrespective of whether they receive a benefit or not.
Addendum 1:
Interestingly, the figures above for Invalid and Sickness Beneficiaries rose significantly from 2009. This ties in with a NZ Herald report, dated 23 June 2012,
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The proportion of long-term ACC clients moving on to benefits has surged since the corporation adopted a tough new stance, which has fuelled allegations that they are being forced off compensation before they are rehabilitated.
Figures supplied by the corporation yesterday also show it has slashed the number of long-term claimants on its books by a quarter since mid-2009.
[...]
But yesterday’s figures show that the proportion of long-term claimants leaving ACC and going on to health-related, unemployment or domestic purposes benefits rose sharply from early 2009.
In the five years to 2008, the proportion going on to benefits was 12.1 per cent, but during 2009 that rose to 16.4. In the first five months of 2010, the most recent data held by ACC, the proportion rose to 19.4 per cent.
ACC figures also showed the corporation had reduced the number of long-term claimants on its books by 3644 or 25 per cent to 10773 in the three years since June 2009. That reduction is well ahead of ACC’s targets.
See: More ACC clients going on to welfare
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Throughout all these events which are beyond the influence and control of the unemployed, solo-parents, widows, invalids, sick, etc, National’s demonisation of those on welfare has been a shocking indictment of John Key’s leadership.
What is it in the mental make-up of politicians like Paula Bennett, John Key, Steven Joyce, and Bill English, that treating those who have lost their jobs, or looking after children, as “bludgers” is morally acceptable?
Especially when they must have access to precisely the same information that I, as a blogger, have.
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Addendum 2:
National’s response to unemployment is the introduction of “reforms” to social welfare legislation,
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Social Development Minister Paula Bennett yesterday introduced the second round of reform legislation.
The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill replaces the current benefits with three new categories: Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support and the Supported Living Payment.
It also includes provisions allowing payments to be cut if beneficiaries fail a drug test, have an outstanding arrest warrant, or if parents who do not meet “social obligations” for getting their children into health and education programmes.
See: Bennett expects welfare reform to save $1.6b
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As Bennett admitted on TVNZ’s Q+A, on 29 April 2012,
“There’s not a job for everyone that would want one right now, or else we wouldn’t have the unemployment figures that we do. “
See: TVNZ Q+A: Transcript of Paula Bennett interview
The question that begs to be asked: how many new jobs will this create?
Addendum 3:
So what did happen to National Food In Schools programme, that it launched with such fanfare in February 2007?
Not surprisingly, Key’s attitude seems to have gone through a Reverse Road to Damascus Experience,
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But then, going from Opposition to Government will do that to politicians.
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: migration
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises..
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Migration
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The rhetoric:
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One of National’s biggest election issues was that of migration. Key and his mates practically crucified the incumbent Labour government in 2008 over the continuing loss of New Zealanders to Australia.
Even one of their election hoardings (see above) made the migration issue a prominent feature of National’s attack-advertising.
And Key poured it on in thick layers of election rhetoric,
“When the going gets this tough, is it any wonder that Kiwis look longingly at our Aussie cousins? Our Aussie cousins, who get paid a third more than us for doing the same job. Our Aussie cousins, who have been given a tax cut in every Budget for the past five years and who will continue to have their taxes cut for Budgets to come.
Too many Kiwis are looking at those stats and choosing to join their cousins across the ditch. We have to give them better reasons to stay .” – John Key, 29 January 2008
See: 2008: A Fresh Start for New Zealand
“We want to make New Zealand an attractive place for our children and grandchildren to live – including those who are currently living in Australia, the UK, or elsewhere. To stem that flow so we must ensure Kiwis can receive competitive after-tax wages in New Zealand.” – John Key, 6 September 2008
See: Environment Policy Launch
“Over the last three years I believe we’ve made some progress, so much that we have been closing that after-tax wage gap, we are building an economy that is now growing at a faster rate than Australia, but it will take us some time to turn that around.” – John Key, 23 November 2011
See: Kiwi exodus to Australia nears record levels
In effect, National – led by our Smile & Wave Dear Leader – was promising New Zealand voters that they, alone, knew the secret to stemming emigration and the loss of New Zealanders to Australia and beyond. It was a bold committment to make to the electorate.
Short of erecting a new Berlin-style wall; with armed guards; and patrolling gunboats to detain Kiwi boatpeople attempting to flee to Australia, how could National perform such a feat?
The reality:
Despite National’s rhetoric and attacks on Labour, their own track record in persuading New Zealanders to remain here and not leave for greener (or browner, in Australia) pastures was utterly abysmal.
In fact,quite the contrary, Statistics NZ revealed that the Great Escape to Oz has accelerated,
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|
Permanent and Long Term (PLT ) Net Migration of NZ Citizens/Residents To/From Australia |
|||
| Year to November | Departures | Arrivals | Net Loss/Gain(linked to source) |
|
2005 |
34,730 |
13,430 |
|
|
2006 |
33,873 |
13,371 |
|
|
2007 |
40,786 |
13,621 |
|
|
2008 |
48,500 |
13,200 |
|
|
Sub-Total |
157,889 |
53,622 |
- 104,267 |
|
2009 |
34,100 |
14,600 |
|
|
2010 |
35,800 |
15,800 |
|
|
2011 |
50,100 |
14,400 |
|
|
2012 |
53,500 |
14,600 |
|
|
Sub-Total |
173,500 |
59,400 | - 114,200 |
Sources: Statistics NZ International Travel and Migration – information releases
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After four years of National, net migration to Australia (excluding other countries such as the UK, etc) has increased by ten thousand people more than under Labour.
To be fair, migration involves factors that are often beyond the control of governments from either end of the political spectrums.
The true issue here is not whether Labour or National or Uncle Tom Cobbly can stem migration. The real issue here is that National cynically exploited migration for purely selfish, political ends. They manipulated the public debate and exploited people’s concerns.
This is why the public view politicians with such odium and distrust.
Little surprise then, that politicians consistantly rank at the bottom of ‘Reader’s Digest ‘ list of respected professions, usually below Used Car Salespeople and just above tele-marketers. See previous blogpost: League Tables that really count! )
Another issue here is that despite National’s right-wing reforms, tax cuts, and partial-asset sales/share floats – New Zealanders are continuing to vote with their feet. An increasing number of families and young people are departing our shores in a vote of no-confidence in John Key and his administration.
It also suggests that the neo-liberal concept of the atomisation of “society” – replaced by the Individual and families – has reached it’s inevitable consequence. If all that matters is the Individual and their own needs, then concepts such as national identity and cultural heritage are hopelessly out-dated concepts. In which case, people will simply follow the money and nothing else matters.
If we are ever to attract New Zealanders back to our country, and to persuade those already here that it is worthwhile being part of this society, then we have to move away from raw Individualism and self-interest. To encourage people to be a part of a society, that society has to be vibrant, strong, and offer more than just cash incentives.
This is why National will never be able to reverse the outward flow of people and loss of talent overseas; the Nats are part of the neo-liberal paradigm for whom society will always take a back seat to the rights and primacy of the Individual. Key and his mob will always be trapped by their own neo-liberal dogma, and can offer us nothing except much hand-wringing; more excuses; and well-worn election rhetoric.
The last word goes to this chap, who no doubt sums up the feelings of many New Zealanders who have departed our shores,
A Victorian-based Kiwi with a student loan debt, who did not want to be named because he did not want to be found by the Government, said he did not intend to pay back any of his student loan.
The 37-year-old’s loan was about $18,000 when he left New Zealand in 1997. He expected it was now in the order of $50,000. The man was not worried about being caught as the Government did not have his details and he did not want to return to New Zealand.
“I would never live there anyway, I feel just like my whole generation were basically sold down the river by the government. I don’t feel connected at all, I don’t even care if the All Blacks win.
“I just realised it was futile living [in New Zealand] trying to pay student loans and not having any life, so I left. My missus had a student loan and she had quite a good degree and she had paid 99c off the principal of her loan after working three years.”
See: Student loan avoiders told to pay up
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment – Growth
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Growth
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Recent history:
In the past, whenever National (or the right wing “Labour-ACT” government of the 1980s) came to power, the result was never very good,
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Source: Dunedin Star
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Source: Otago Daily Times
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Source: Otago Daily Times
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Source: Otago Daily Times
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The rhetoric:
“The National Party has an economic plan that will build the foundations for a better future.
* We will focus on lifting medium-term economic performance and managing taxpayers’ money effectively.
* We will be unrelenting in our quest to lift our economic growth rate and raise wage rates.
* We will cut taxes, not just in election year, but in a regular programme of ongoing tax cuts.
* We will invest in the infrastructure this country needs for productivity growth.
* We will be more careful with how we spend the cash in the public purse, monitoring not just the quantity but also the quality of government spending.
* We will concentrate on equipping young New Zealanders with the education they need for a 21st century global economy.
* We will reduce the burden of compliance and bureaucracy, and we will say goodbye to the blind ideology that locks the private sector out of too many parts of our economy.
And we will do all of this while improving the public services that Kiwis have a right to expect. ” – John Key, 29 July 2008
See: 2008: A Fresh Start for New Zealand
” Growing the economy is the Government’s number one priority, and science and innovation have a key part to play in that growth.
Indeed, this Government has made science and innovation one of the six cornerstones of its economic growth agenda. We’ve done this because New Zealand needs an economic jolt. Our productivity and economic growth have been sluggish for decades and as a result we have slipped down the OECD’s ranking of national wealth per capita.
Our performance compared to other smaller advanced economies has been uninspiring at best. For example, in 1976 our per capita income was slightly ahead of Australia. It was nearly 20 percent greater than the OECD average.
We are now 20 percent behind the OECD average. Australia, by contrast, is still about 20 percent ahead.
Finland is another example of our relative decline. In 1979 our per capita income lines crossed – New Zealand going down and Finland going up. The Finns are now about 20 percent ahead of us.
So, how do we turn the situation around? ” – John Key, 1 July 2011
See: National Economic Development Forum
Present reality:
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Two things would be fair to say,
- National inherited an economy with low unemployment and net government debt at an all time low of 5.6% of New Zealand’s GDP, net. (Far from being fiscally profligate as National claims, Labour actually behaved more responsibly than National has done, as the information below clearly illustrates.)
- The Global Financial Crisis was not an event of National’s making. (Though the ideology of corporate greed, profiteering, and minimal government oversight which contributed to the Crisis is most certainly one that National shares.)
As Treasury data shows, New Zealand’s net government debt situation worsened from 2008 to June of 2012,
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Source: Treasury – Financial Statemement of the Government of New Zealand
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Source: IBID
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Table 16 above opened with a net government debt of 5.6% – left by the outgoing Labour government.
It closed with 25% net government debt – a fourfold increase – courtesy of National’s “prudent fiscal management”.
As the Treasury document explained,
Net debt increases as a result of cash deficits and
declines as a result of cash surpluses. It also
fluctuates in line with valuation movements in the
underlying financial assets and liabilities of the Crown
and movements in the amounts of currency issued to
New Zealand banks.Net debt increased this year, continuing the steady
increase since the global financial crisis (figure 11).
Net debt increased from last year primarily due to
additional borrowings over the year to meet the
residual cash deficit (refer table 17).
Source: IBID
In other words, National took in lower revenue – taxes – which inevitably resulted in increased borrowings; slashing of State services and funding; increasing user pays for other state services; mass redundancies of state sector workers, and impending partial state asset sales.
The Treasury document goes on to show how much revenue was lost between 2008 and 2012,
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Source: IBID
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A recent NZ Herald report has updated Treasury’s expections. The tax-take, GDP growth, and unemployment outlooks are not good,
A weaker economic outlook over the next four years has taken a bite of nearly $8 billion out of the Government’s forecast tax revenues for that period.
Nevertheless the Treasury is still forecasting a return to surplus, though only just, on schedule by 2015.
The forecasts in yesterday’s half-year economic and fiscal update are in line with the latest consensus forecasts, which means they are significantly weaker than in the Budget.
The growth track is lower by around 0.5 percentage points a year.
It reflects downwards revisions to expected growth among New Zealand’s trading partners, and a kiwi dollar expected to remain around present levels until the first half of 2014, so that net exports subtract from growth for the next couple of years.
Unemployment has been revised higher; it is 7.3 per cent now and still expected to be 5.6 per cent by March 2016.
See: Outlook slashes tax-take by $8b
The forecast rate of tepid growth is on top of low to negative growth in the last four years,
.
Source: tradingeconomics.com
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So what caused the drop in government tax revenue? And why did the lower tax revenue impact on higher unemployment and lower domestic growth?
The answer, in part, is not hard to uncover, and the following reports tell the story of how National undermined (sabotaged?) our nation’s government accounts.
First, we were offered The Bribe,
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Then we got the warning signs,
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We were not exempt from the looming storm that was the coming Global Financial Crisis ,
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National’s response?
The prudent step to take would have been to cancel the tax cuts as simply unaffordable. (Labour’s Phil Goff generously promised to support National had it taken such a prudent measure. See: Labour would support deferral of tax cuts)
As a nation, we would then maintain social services (education, housing, healthcare, justice system, early childhood education, superannuation, etc) – or cut taxes. We could not have both. Not without even further massive borrowings from overseas.
National’s decision to persevere with their taxcuts beggered belief for those who understood the seriousness of the GFC and the recession we had fallen into,
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The consequences of National’s irresponsible cutting of taxation revenue was utterly predictable,
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Writing for the NZ Herald, Brian Fallow put the cost of taxcuts at $8 billion. (See: Outlook slashes tax-take by $8b)
Only a fool (or devoted National supporter – the two are not mutually exclusive) could believe that we could give away billions in tax cuts without resorting to massive borrowings to cover the shortfall.
The result was a government deficit rising fourfold from 2008 to 2012, as the above Treasury stats clearly show.
National then desperately needed to balance the books. It scrimped and scrapped by cutting the state sector; raising taxes (gst, fuel tax, ACC levies, government charges, etc) elsewhere; closing tax exemptions for property investors; and cutting back on services (see: Student allowances a thing of the past for post-graduate students ).
Even paper delivery kids were not exempt from the grasp of this Scrooge-like ‘government’. See: Budget 2012: ‘Paper boy tax’ on small earnings stuns Labour)
It also desperately needed to proceed with it’s state asset sales.
A cynic with a conspiratorial ‘bent’ might suspect that National deliberately manufactured it’s own debt crisis so that it could justify the partial privatisation of Meridian, Genesis, Might River Power, Solid Energy, and Air New Zealand, to it’s corporate/investor/aspirationist constituent-base.
In doing so, not only was the door left open for their privatisation agenda – but the side-effects of tax cuts left National with few options and manouvering room for job creation policies.
With net government debt quadrupling in four years from $10.2 billion (2008) to $50.6 billion (2012), and taxation revenue falling from $56.7 billion (2008) to $55 billion (2012), their hands were seemingly “tied”.
Compounding matters, National cut back state services and fired thousands of state sector workers, resulting in a further drop in expenditure, all of which impacted harshly on the economy.
Whether Free Marketeers like it or not, the state is the #1 business generator in our economy and society. When it cuts spending, the flow-on effects on other, down-stream businesses, is inescapable.
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With higher income earners either saving their tax cuts or paying down debt, tax cuts failed to “fire” the economy as Little Leader said in 2009 and Dear Leader adamantly predicted in 2010,
“By taking firm, early and decisive action, the Government is managing the downturn to cushion the immediate impact on New Zealanders and to enhance future growth.” – Bill English, 28 May 2009
See: Budget 2009 – House goes into urgency
“We’ve cut all personal income tax rates, GST has increased to 15%, and we’ve boosted NZ Super, Working For Families, and benefit payments by 2.02% to compensate for the rise in GST.
Today’s changes are just one part of our comprehensive plan to grow the economy, create jobs, boost incomes, and raise living standards for all New Zealanders. The tax package improves incentives to work, and tilts the economy towards savings, investment, and exports.” – John Key, 1 Oct 2010
See: Tax cuts today
In May 2010, Key had even used the migration issue as justification to cut taxes for higher income earners, professionals, and others in top brackets,
“We can be envious about these things but without those people in our economy all the rest of us will either have less people paying tax or fundamentally less services that they provide.
They include doctors, entrepreneurs often, scientists, engineers, lawyers, accountants, school principals and nurses.
On Thursday you will see a deliberate attempt to make sure those people stay and put their skills to work here in our economy.” – John Key, 18 May 2010
See: Key again defends tax cuts
BS. All of it is, BS.
None of it worked, of course. The economy not only failed to grow – it stagnated or contracted (see: Economic recovery stagnates – NZIER). And despite two tax cuts, migration to Australia skyrocketed – ten thousand higher than under the previous Labour government’s last four years. (see related blogpost: Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: migration)
Up until 2011, two of our most important industries – manufacturing and construction – contracted, at a time when the Christchurch re-build should have been growing their turn-over and profitability. The downturn in manufacturing and construction had a flow-on effect on the Wholesale Trade sector,
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Source: New Zealand in Profile: 2012 – Economy
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Other measures of the economy show no sign of improvement,
Bank profits back over $3 billion while economy stagnates (24 April 2012)
then “good news”,
Pickup in economic growth predicted (29 Aug 2012)
followed two months later by bad news,
Businesses gloomy about economic growth (9 Oct 2012)
Current Account Deficit Widens (19 Sept 2012)
Trade deficit widens as dairy values fall (27 Nov 2012)
Terms of trade continue to drop (4 Dec 2012)
Govt deficit up as tax take dips (5 Dec 2012)
Deficit $169m wider than predictions (6 Dec 2012)
Growth forecast cut, debt seen higher (18 Dec 2012)
Current account gap narrows as trade balance shrinks (19 Dec 2012)
Outlook slashes tax-take by $8b (19 Dec2012)
Whichever way one looks at it, it’s a mess.
And it’s simply a bad joke for Key to reassure us,
“While I think we have to acknowledge that the last three years have been pretty tough with the Global Financial Crisis, on a relative basisNew Zealand’s been doing a better than a lot of other countries.” – John Key, 17 Nov 2011
See: Key and Goff Q&A: Creating jobs
Trying to suggest that we are nowhere as bad off as other nations such as the US, Spain, Greece, etc – so our current stagnating economy is somehow acceptable – is sheer rubbish.
One might as well justify National’s poor performance and reckless decision-making by stating we are better off than Zimbabwe, Haiti, or Bangladesh,
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We should not be “worse off” than those nations – we headed into the Global Financial Crisis with relatively good economic indicators!
There is Always An Alternative!
A responsible government would have abandoned any prospect of taxcuts and prepared policies to keep people in work; off the unemployment queues; paying taxes; and contributing to the economy.
Policies such as,
- Government procurement favouring local providers over imports from other nations. This would have kept companies such as Kiwirail from closing their Dunedin Hillside workshops, with the loss of over 150 jobs (see: Dunedin workshop sale will see job losses – Kiwirail)
- Government intervention in the value of the New Zealand dollar. The high dollar has destroyed some 40,000 manufacturing/exporting jobs in this country – swelling the ranks of the unemployed to 175,000 (see: Unemployment up to 7.3pc – a 13 year high, Job losses blamed on high NZ dollar: more forecast, Rakon a victim of high dollar – union, etc). Other OECD nations have thrown away the mopnetarist rule book and engaged in quantitative easing to preserve their manufacturing base. The choice is either that – or losing more jobs and increasing expenditure on unproductive social welfare.
- Government implementating a mass construction programme of 10,000 new state houses. (see previous blogpost: Can we do it? Bloody oath we can!)
With Option #3, National appears to have missed the obvious.
Injecting several billion into a crash-programme to build ten thousand homes for New Zealanders, who are currently struggling to buy their own houses, makes sense.
The Christchurch re-build has proven this to be the case, as the NZ Herald reported on 20 December 2012,
The economy grew at an annual pace of 2.5 per cent, and was 2 per cent higher than the same quarter a year earlier. Revisions to previous quarters showed New Zealand dipped back into recession in the second half of 2010, with two 0.3 per cent contractions in each quarter.
The New Zealand dollar dropped to 83.33 US cents after the figures were released, from 83.60 cents immediately before.Construction kept the economy ticking over with a 4.5 per cent expansion, contributing 0.2 of percentage point to overall GDP. Electricity, gas, water and waste services grew 4.4 per cent in the quarter, contributing 0.1 of a percentage point in growth to GDP, underpinned by an increase in hydroelectric generation.
“Residential and non-residential building activities were both up strongly this quarter, and both were boosted by Canterbury,” Statistics NZ said in its report. “The upper North Island also contributed to the growth in residential building activity.”
The Canterbury rebuild, which is expected to top $30 billion, is widely seen as the saving grace for an economy that has struggled to recover from its deepest recession in two decades, and has been getting some help from a resurgent property market in Auckland in recent months.
See: Economy grows 0.2pc – saved by construction
Statistics NZ national accounts manager Rachael Milicich didn’t split hairs. She bluntly stated,
”The growth in the latest quarter was driven by construction.”
See: Economic activity up 0.2 percent
As for the tax cuts stimulating the economy with extra spending – you can forget that pipedream. According to Statistics NZ,
Household consumption expenditure, which measures the volume of spending by New Zealand households, was flat this quarter (0.0 percent).
See: IBID
National not only bought the 2008 election with promises of unsustainable, unaffordable tax cuts – Key, English, Joyce, et al, squandered an opportunity to keep 70,000 New Zealanders in paid employment (see: Employment graph, 2008-2012).
It was all so unnecessary.
Addendum
In March 2008, the then Finance Minister, Michael Cullen said,
“Even before these challenges hit home John Key wants to increase our debt to at least 25 per cent of GDP. But he does not pretend he wants to borrow more to pay for more services and he does not really believe he needs to borrow more to pay for roads. He only wants to outspend Labour on tax cuts.”
See: [Labour]Government will not borrow for tax cuts
According to Treasury, the current net government debt as at 30 June 2012 stands at… 24.8% of GDP – just shy of 25%,
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Source: Treasury – Financial Statemement of the Government of New Zealand
Cullen called it 100%.
It’s a shame that 1,053,398 voters couldn’t look past their own selfishness, and the lure of cash dangled before them, by a Party that was hell-bent on it’s own agenda to win power at any cost.
For New Zealand, that cost measured $50 billion and 175,000 unemployed.
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012 – environment
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Environment
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The rhetoric:
“What global Leaders know, and what the National Party knows, is that environmentalism and a commitment to economic growth must go hand in hand. We should be wary of anyone who claims that one can or should come without the other. And we should always measure a Government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record.
In the years ahead it will be increasingly important that New Zealand marries its economic and environmental policies. Global climate change awareness, resource shortages, and increasing intolerance of environmental degradation will give environmental policy renewed relevance on the world stage…
… And, in seeking the balance between environmental and economic goals, National will never forget that New Zealand’s outstanding physical environment is a key part of what makes our country special. Kiwis proudly value our forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans. They are part of our history and they must continue to define our future.”
see: John Key, Speech: Environment Policy Launch
“National will also ensure New Zealand works on the world stage to support international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations and we will work to achieve further global alliances that build on the goals agreed to at Kyoto.”
See: Ibid
The reality:
National’s track record in environmental conservation and protection has been as expected; bad. And getting worse with each policy release.
On the agenda are;
- Fracking – a process that has been shown overseas to induce small earthquakes; contamination of underground water tables; risks to air quality; gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals escaping to the surface; mishandling of toxic waste chemicals; and health effects on humans and animals.
- Increased mining actitivity in sensitive ecological areas such as the Denniston Plateau.
- Allowing deep sea drilling to go ahead despite New Zealand being woefully unprepared for a major oil spill such as happened in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. (see: Deepwater Horizon)
- A watering down of a proposed fishery protection reserve in the Ross Sea.
- New Zealand was the only country to vote against protection marine mammals at the International Union for Conservation of Nature conference.
- And the abandonment of New Zealand’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol.
Perhaps the most scurrilous, dishonest act, was National’s gradual backtracking on the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme).
On May 2008, John Key stated,
“National supports the principle of the ETS and is following the select committee process closely. National has had reservations about the timing of new taxes on motorists and households when there has been no personal tax relief for so long.”
See: ‘Carbon neutral’ policy added to scrap heap
On 8 April 2010, Key confirmed that the ETS would be preserved unchanged,
“I’d say it’s unlikely it would be amended.”
See: ETS changes ‘unlikely’ despite pleas
By 6 June 2010, the then-Climate Minister, Nick Smith announced that whether or not agriculture comes into the emissions trading scheme in 2015 would depend on technological advances and what other countries do.
See: ETS may exclude agriculture – Climate Change Minister
And on 9 November 2011, Nick Smith announced,
“ … It is not in New Zealand’s interests to include agricultural emissions in the ETS yet. The lack of any practical and real technologies to reduce agricultural emissions means it would only impose a cost or tax on our most important export industry. It would also have New Zealand too far ahead of our trading partners on climate change mitigation measures. National will review the position in 2014 and only include agriculture if new technologies are available and more progress is made internationally on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
By 3 July 2012, Key began to publicly vacillate,
“John Key says the Government will wait for other countries to follow suit before introducing agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme…”
See: Govt puts off including agriculture in ETS
And on 20 August 2012, National introduces the “Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2012″, which would remove agricultural emmissions indefinitely, and will,
“remove a specified entry date for surrender obligations on biological emissions from agriculture”.
See: Government announces ETS amendments
It took them four years to do it, with some cunning public manipulation (and outright lies) – but National achieved it’s real agenda,
- Watering down the ETS until it was toothless,
- Keeping agriculture (the worst emitter of greenhouse gases in NZ) out of the ETS
- Abandoning the Kyoto protocol
See previous blogpost for further details: ETS – National continues to fart around
Perhaps New Zealanders don’t quite realise that when National talks of being “blue-green” – they are referring to the colour of money – not conservation.
The response:
National’s response to our growing environmental problems?
Shoot the messenger.
In November 2012, Environmental scientist, Dr Mike Joy, told the unvarnished truth to the world that our “100% Pure” and “Clean & Green” image was largely a myth. Dr Joy blew the cover on our dirty rivers; fouled lakes; high levels of greenhouse gas emissions from our agricultural sector.
He told the New York Times,
“There are almost two worlds in New Zealand. There is the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality.”
See: New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities
National’s Tim Groser did not like that one little bit, and responded with condemnation of Dr Joy,
“It’s been used as a stick to beat New Zealand by environmental activists.”
See: Minister lashes out at environmentalists over 100% Pure
And Dear Leader added this confusingly disjointed bit, just to sheet home the message to all critics to ‘STFU’,
“It’s like saying ‘McDonald’s, I’m loving it’ – I’m not sure every moment that someone’s eating McDonald’s they’re loving it . . . it’s the same thing with 100% Pure. It’s got to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt.”
See: IBID
See previous blogposts: When spin doctors go bad, John Key’s “pinch of salt” style of telling the truth
I wonder if Mr Groser or Dear Leader will be swimming or drinking water from any of these rivers,
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The result:
Meanwhile, Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index highlighted one simple fact; New Zealand has slipped on international EPI rankings.
In 2008, New Zealand ranked seventh out of 149 nations.
(See: 2008 Environmental Performance Index)
In 2012, our ranking dropped seven placings to number fourteen.
(See: 2012 Environmental Performance Index)
On every indicator and policy, New Zealand is doing poorly in the field of conservation. We are going backwards.
New Zealanders need to get their collective heads around one simple fact; giving priority to environmental protection is not just a “good Greenie idea” (which it is, by the way) – but impacts on our $23 billion tourism industry and our $14.5 billion dairy and meat export industry.
Those who would damage or destroy our environment for short-term monetary gain, sheer selfishness, or pigheaded ignorance, are guilty of nothing less than economic treason against our country. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Unsworth! See previous related blogpost: Lobbyist stands by ‘ego trip’ email)
Addendum:
The only reason that National has not merited a “F” is that at least they backed down from mining in Schedule 4 Conservation lands, after a public outcry and 50,000-strong protest in Auckland (see: Huge protest says no to mining on conservation land) in May 2010.
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: employment/unemployment
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Employment/Unemployment
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The rhetoric:
“We agree with you, it’s the government’s responsibility to do everything within it’s powers to try to get people jobs.” – John Key, 17 November 2011
“The driving goal of my Government is to build a more competitive and internationally-focused economy with less debt, more jobs and higher incomes.” – John Key, 21 December 2011
“It’s true, ultimately if every one was to get off welfare we’d need to create even more jobs, but that’s the Government’s whole agenda is to have a vibrant economy that does produce jobs. I certainly accept there’s not a job for every single person, but I don’t accept there aren’t some jobs out there.” - John Key, 28 February 2012
The reality:
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Source: Tradingeconomics – Unemployment rate
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Source: Tradingeconomics – Unemployed persons
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The response:
Unemployment has increased by 70,000 people since National took office in 2008.
The Global Financial Crisis, as a rationale, has worn thin and should be dismissed for what it is; a shoddy excuse that should no longer be accepted.
The lowest unemployment, as any National politician will happily confirm is in Christchurch,
In Canterbury, in the year to September 2012, the unemployment rate decreased 0.3 percentage points to 5.2 percent. For women the decrease was 0.8 percentage points, down to 5.9 percent. There was a slight increase in the unemployment rate for men (0.1 percentage points), up to 4.6 percent.
The number of people employed rose 8,800 over the year in Canterbury, with 11,600 more people employed in part-time work (up 17.9 percent). There was a 2,800 decrease in the number of people working full time (down 1.2 percent).
The total increase in employment reflected a statistically significant 9,000 rise in the professional scientific, technical services, administrative, and support services industry group. Most of this rise was from the professional, scientific, and technical services industries.
The number of men and women employed in Canterbury both increased. For women the rise in employment was mostly in the professional, scientific, technical services, administrative, and support services industry group. For men the rise in employment was in that industry group, but also in the construction industry.
Which poses the question: if the reconstruction of Christchurch is creating jobs – why has National not engaged in a similar house-building programme throughout the country?
If the reconstruction programme has resulted in increased employment in Christchurch – why not implement the very same solution nationwide, to generate jobs?
The answer, unfortunately, lies in ideological pig-headedness; National does not accept that the State has a role in job creation,
“Nothing creates jobs and boosts incomes better than business growth. For New Zealand to build a more productive and competitive economy, we need more innovative companies out there selling their products on the world stage.” – John Key, 24 August 2012
Unfortunately (for us, as a nation and society), this laissez faire, market-based approach, has failed to deliver the jobs we desperately need. In fact, the “free market” has simply opted for the cheaper, easy-option,
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Not exactly a stunning result for National’s promise last year to create 170,000 new jobs.
Addendum:
Will Statistics NZ include the 719 foreign workers as part of any job growth stats for the next Quarter?
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012: crime
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Crime
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The rhetoric
” We also need to ensure there is effective policing in all parts of our cities and in all areas of the country. We will not tolerate violence and antisocial behaviour. Under a National government, gangs will not be controlling neighbourhoods so posties can’t even deliver the daily mail.
The tragic events surrounding the parole of Graeme Burton show that Labour’s law and order policies seem to be based on the rights of criminals.
Let me say that under National, the parole system will be focused on protecting innocent Kiwis from hardened, unrepentant and dangerous criminals. Under any government I lead there will be no parole for repeat violent offenders.
We will do more than that to improve our criminal justice system, but for today let me send the clearest of messages. Those who break the laws of our society destroy the fabric of The Kiwi Way. No government I lead will put up with that. ” – John Key, 30 January 2007
See: The Kiwi Way: A Fair Go For All
Law and order is to National what environmentalism is to the Greens; it’s ‘raw meat’ for their conservative constituents – many of whom have little understanding nor interest in the root causes of crime. Poverty, unemployment; a growing wealth gap; hopelessness; alienation – these are inconceivable to many National supporters.
So Key and his National cronies, spin doctors, and Party strategists are on solid ground when it comes to this issue. Throw in a bit of beneficiary bashing…
“We also have a serious and growing problem with long-term welfare dependency.”
See: IBID
And a bit of brown bashing…
“I don’t think that’s necessary and I think my view is widely held by a lot of New Zealanders. If it was holding New Zealand back, sure we could arguably go and do that but that’s not where I see these things going. He can make any claims he likes. The Maori King entitled to a different view to mine, it doesn’t mean I’m culturally ignorant.
I don’t think it’s right. If someone wants to take that land grab, they can give it a go.“
See: Government could nationalise water – Key
… and the Nats are practically guaranteed the government. Never underestimate the casual racism of a significant sector of our society.
This racism plays into the hands of National who regularly tap such latent conservative streaks in our society for their own political agenda.
More rhetoric
“The Government is committed to keeping New Zealanders safe – on our streets and in our communities. We’ve delivered the lowest crime rate in 30 years, but we want to continue to keep driving the crime rate down.” – John Key, 3 July 2012
See: Prime Minister welcomes first action plan
Key has taken credit for a “drop” in crime on several occassions this year. But is he telling the truth? Telling lies? Or bending the truth and misrepresenting the facts to suit his Party’s agenda?
Let’s check the stats from NZ Police, shall we?
Crime trends for the year ending June 2008,
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And crime trends up to 2012,
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And guess what…?
The trends clearly show a gradual reduction of reported crime since 1996/97.
For Key to claim this as a “success” for his administration reminds us, yet again, that the man will bend the truth to suit his demands. Quite simply, the drop in crime has been ongoing for the last sixteen years and has little to do with Dear Leader and his Party’s policies.
Reported crime was also dropping druring the 2000-08 Labour-led government.
Will John Key take credit for that “success” as well?
Addendum
If, as data shows, and as Key has been crowing, crime has been steadily reducing since 1996, why is National committing to spending $300 million for a new prison at Wiri, South Auckland, and a further $540 million to operate and maintain? That is $840 million of our taxes that could be better invested in upgrading delapidated state houses and raising this country’s children out of poverty.
See: Fletcher signs $300m Wiri prison contract
Could it be that the motivation lies with providing a profitable Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) with Fletcher Building, Serco, Spotless Facility Services, John Laing, InfraRed, Accident Compensation Corporation, and Macquarie Capital? That’s nearly $1 billion going to private corporations for a prison we seem not to need.
Who sez crime doesn’t pay?
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment – Compassion
To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harshly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Compassion
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The measure of compassion expressed by a government is the one thing that separates a government Of the People – to regimes that encompass the worst forms of self-interest; autocracy; barbarism; and corruption.
Of all aspects of National’s performance, compassion is one that has no measurement; no means by which to compare performance from one year to the next; or from one government to the other.
However, there are three issues relating to National’s performance and John Key’s leadership, that give an overall impression of this government’s capacity for compassion.
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Pompe Disease sufferers
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I first wrote about seven people – all of whom were afflicted with Pompe Disease – in October 2011. (See: Priorities?)
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As I wrote then,
“It seems that this government can spend millions on rugby, party zones, luxury limousines, ministerial travel and other perks – but spending money to save the lives of our fellow New Zealanders is “unaffordable” ?
Well, at least this illustrates the priorities of this government like nothing else does. It is obvious what is more important to John Key and his colleagues in the National Party.
What makes this tragedy even more ghastly is that in 2008, John Key campaigned on behalf of women suffering from breast cancer for Pharmac to fully fund herceptin. Pharmac at that time had decided to fund only a nine week course – whilst campaigners were demanding a full 12 month period of funding. (see: Herceptin: What’s it going to take? )
Perhaps the difference between Mr Hill’s case, suffering from Pompe’s disease, is that 2008 was an election year and National was campaigning hard against an incumbent Labour government, led by an experienced, politically savy, and fairly popular prime minister.
National of course, won the 2008 election and Key “made good” on his election promise to force Pharmac to extend funding for herceptin (see: Key: Herceptin funding proudest achievement).”
An email to Health Minister Tony Ryall, on 22 October 2011, yielded no results.
On 12 June 2012, Allyson Locke – another Pompe Disease sufferer – went public with her story,
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In November 2012, Allyson wrote directly to John Key, via his Facebook account,
Dear Mr Key
I have written to you several times over the past 2 years regarding people with Pompe Disease not being able to get treatment. Pompe Disease is a rare (7 people in NZ have it) and fatal disease. There is a medication available in NZ which will halt the disease and in most cases give some improvement. This is an enormous positive for a fatal disease. The medication has been proven to work and there are published medical papers regarding this. The medication is expensive, but there are medications funded in NZ which are more expensive, and less proven.My question to you Mr Key is, why do you continue to ignore the plight of Kiwis who suffer from Pompe disease, letting us die from slow and painful deaths at young ages. The youngest person in NZ who has this disease is only 20 years old. She has been declined for treatment. Another one of our members has been declined 4 times, FOUR TIMES! Nearly 60 other countries world wide fund this medication.
To be honest, your treatment of those of us with Pompe Disease is nothing short of ignorant and criminal. It’s about time you stood up and answered to us. You’re OUR Prime Minister, let’s hear what YOU have to say about it. We are sick of being ignored by you and your PHARMAC crew. If it was a member of your family i bet the medication would be funded asap. But because we are nameless faces, you don’t care. WE are KIWIS and we NEED treatment! If we had cancer we would get treatment! We wouldn’t have to beg and plead for our lives.
But I’m not too proud to beg. I’m dying, and i need treatment. What will you do for us? Please answer me.
Sincerely
Allyson Lock
She received no reply. Not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement.
Thereafter, I wrote directly to John Key as well (see: Terminal disease sufferer appeals to John Key).
My email was forwarded to Health Minister, Tony Ryall, who at least has the intestinal fortitude to respond to my queries, unlike our spineless “Prime Minister”,
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(See: Terminal disease sufferer appeals to John Key – Update & more questions)
I found Ryall’s response curious and requested clarification on his stament that he was “as a Minister [...] prevented by law from intervening in PHARMAC’s decision-making process”,
Date:Thursday, 22 November 2012 9:41 PM
From: Frank Macskasy “fmacskasy@yahoo.com”
Subject: Pompe Disease sufferers: A request for mercy
To: Tony Ryall “Tony.Ryall@parliament.govt.nz”Sir,
I am in receipt of your email dated 22 November, regarding Enzyme Replacement Therapy (ERT) for sufferers of Pompe Disease. I understand you have already been in contact with Ms Allyson Lock on this matter.
You state that your reason for not supporting funding for ERT is – and I quote you – that “as a Minister I am prevented by law from intervening in PHARMAC’s decision-making process”.
I refer your attention to the 2008 election campaign where your Party pledged to extend herceptin treatment for breast cancer, from nine weeks to twelve months, even though Pharmac had up to that point been resisting all such requests on the grounds of cost and efficacy.
Post election, after becoming government, you implemented your election promise, and you stated in a press release dated 10 December 2008,
“We are extending funding for Herceptin to allow patients and their doctors to have a choice of a 12 months course. The nine-week treatment option also remains funded and available.”
I refer your attention to the following press releases from yourself and the Prime Minister, announcing additional funding for herception, despite PHARMAC’s initial decision opposing the move;
12-month Herceptin treatment now available
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0812/S00083.htm
Government honours Herceptin promise
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0812/S00082.htm
I have three subsequent questions, which you may be able to clarify;
1. If you are unable to intervene in PHARMAC’s decision making process – what process did you use to fund herception from nine weeks to twelve months?
2. Where was funding obtained from?
3. Why are you unable to use the same process to fund ERT as you did for Herceptin?
I hope this problem can be resolved with some urgency, as Pompe Disease is terminal, and seven New Zealanders are facing a death sentence unless help is forthcoming.
Regards,
-Frank Macskasy
Blogger
Minister Ryall’s response only seemed to add to the impression that National’s intervention for breast cancer sufferers in 2008 was a political stunt, motivated for electoral advantage, and nothing more. He wrote back on 5 December,
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(See: Health Minister circumvents law to fulfill 2008 election bribe? )
In his email, Ryall outlined how National circumvented the law and used Ministry of Health money as a slush fund to pay for their 2008 electoral promise (to extend herceptin treatment for breast cancer sufferers).
I replied six days later,
Date: Tuesday, 11 December 2012 9:17 PM
From: Frank Macskasy “fmacskasy@yahoo.com”
Subject: In response to your letter dated 5 December
To: Tony Ryall “Tony.Ryall@parliament.govt.nz”Sir,
Re; Pompe Disease sufferers
Thank you for your letter dated 5 December explaining the circumstances and means by which Herception was funded outside of normal PHARMAC channels. Using the Ministry of Health to directly fund an extension of Herceptin for breast cancer sufferers was certainly a novel approach.
It occurs to me that the same process can be employed to fund Enzyme Replacement Therapies (ERT) for the seven New Zealanders who are suffering from the terminal condition known as Pompe Disease.
I do not accept that, as you suggest in your 5 December letter, that “ in the current fiscal environment, unfortunately funding is not available for all treatments” since your government seems to find funding for events such as the Rugby World Cap ($220m); advertising by the NZ Defence Force ($20m); bonuses for state owned enterprises employees ($54m); millions spent on tax breaks and advertising campaigns in the movie industry, etc.
There appears to be no valid reason that Pompe Disease sufferers are not offered the same “lifeline” that you extended breast cancer sufferers in 2008.
It is my contention that through clever negotiations, government should be able to secure necessary ERT medication at a reasonable price, perhaps by offering contracts in others areas.
At least we have established that government is not constrained by legislation surrounding PHARMAC and that flexibility exists with funding mechanisms.
I urge you to reconsider this issue and to find ways and means to facilitate a positive outcome for Pompe Disease sufferers.
Regards,
-Frank Macskasy
I have yet to receive a response.
Addendum 1
On 8 May 2012 Finance Minister, Bill English, conceded that partial-privatisation of Meridian, Genesis, Mighty River, Solid Energy, and further sell-down of Air New Zealand might result in the government having to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in those SOEs (see: Govt might have to borrow more once assets sold). But that’s ok, because English said,
“You’re looking at over the next three or four years growth in the Crown balance sheet net value of 20 or 25 billion dollars, so a few hundred million here and there is not acutally that big a commitment.“
It’s a shame the same sentiment cannot extended to New Zealanders desperatel requiring life-giving medicines.
Addendum 2
On 20 December 2012, the Remuneration Authority granted a 1.9% salary increase – back-dated to 1 July 2012 – for all politicians. (See: MPs get 1.9 per cent pay rise)
Which is difficult to reconcile with Minister Ryall’s comment on 5 December 2012,
“… as I advised you in my letter of 22 November 2012, in the current fiscal environment, unfortunately funding is not available for all treatments.”
There is no compassion here.
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Salisbury School
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Salibury School.
This one beggars belief.
On 27 August 2012, Education Minister and National’s #1 Screw-Up announced the closure of an all-girl’s special needs residential school, at Richmond - Salisbury School,
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The all-female students were to be “re-integrated” (ie; forcibly amalgamated) with Halswell School, in Christchurch. Halswell is described as a “Boys School, Sch. for Intellectual Impairments” on one website, www.school.nz.
There were immediate concerns about the wisdom and safety of placing vulnerable young women in an all-male environment, where both genders were highly vulnerable and at-risk from inappropriate behaviour.
Despite the well-meaning – but ultimately misguided views of some – it is impossible to monitor every single young person. The numerous incidences of sexual abuse in religious institutions such as Catholic Schools should be sufficient evidence that children can be at severe risk of inappropriate behaviour and exploitation by others.
As an aside, this blogger condemns in the strongest possible terms the irresponsible comments and attitudes of certain individuals who, by their words, supported Parata’s unsound and dangerous proposals. (See: Government ‘right’ to close school – academic)
Luckily for the young women of Salisbury School and their families, sanity - in the form of Justice Dobson of the High Court – prevailed. On 12 December 2012, Justice Dobson ruled that the Minister of Education’s decision to close Salisbury School was illegal.
Illegal – and completely, utterly, insane.
Justice Dobson said the proposed amalgamation created “the prospect of greater risk of sexual or physical abuse” to the girls if they shifted to a co-ed institution. It doesn’t take a Quantum Physicist to figure that one out (see: School denies sex risk to pupils).
Only a person totally lacking in insight could have contemplated needlessly placing vulnerable young women into a position of potential harm.
Little wonder that Salisbury’s Board chairwoman, Helen McDonnell stated with obvious frustration and anger,
“We do not believe the minister intends to retain Salisbury after 2014; her views, and those of her ministry, are clearly pre-determined. Therefore, we call on the Government to appoint another minister to take any decisions considered to be necessary.”
Parata is spectacularly inept beyond polite description.
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And only a political Party – National in this instance – that shared such a lack of insight and awareness of personal vulnerabilities, could even contemplate allowing such madness to proceed.
Question: had Parata’s decision stood and the amalgamation proceeded – who would have accepted responsibility for any harm to any of the young women students transferred to Halswell with this mythical “wraparound care”?
Answer: no one.
Such is the way here in New Zealand.
Compassion? None demonstrated here. Only cold, hard-hearted indifference. And stupidity beyond belief.
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Welfare beneficiaries
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There is nothing as low as kicking people when they are down.
The 2007/08 the Global Financial Crisis started a world away in Wall Street, USA. It would be fair to say that the Boards of Lehmann Bros, Goldman Sachs, AIG, General Motors, et al, did not comprise of social welfare beneficiaries. It was not the Unemployed, solo-mothers, widows, Sick and Invalid, who made the decisions that would plunge the planet’s economy into an on-going Recession.
But listening to the likes of Paula Bennett and John Key, you would be be hard-pressed not to come to the conclusion that the victims of the Recession – and now social welfare recipients – did not cause the global economic meltdown.
Never have so few powerless been blamed for so many awful decisions by the powerful.
Amongst Bennett’s agenda to demonise welfare recipients,
- solo parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit would be required to look for part-time work when their youngest child is five and fulltime work when that child turns fourteen, (see: Key: Mums of one-year-olds better off working). The inference being that looking after the nation’s children is not “real work”.
- Parents receiving welfare payments would be made to enrol their children in early childhood education centres and with a doctor. (see: Welfare reforms target kids’ education, health) The inference being that if you’ve just been made redundant, or left a violent partner, and in receipt of a social welfare benefit, that you are suddenly unfit to be a parent.
- mothers who have an additional baby already on the Domestic Purposes Benefit will be required to look for work after 12 months, (see: IBID). The inference being that women on the DPB are deliberately becoming pregnant to receive more “handouts”. Fortunately, MSD data shows different.
- a proposal to force women and their daughters, receiving a state benefit, on to contraception (but no mandatory sterilisation for men on welfare) . (see: Birth control plan ‘belittling to women’). The inference being that women on welfare are of “loose morals”.
- a proposal to force social welfare recipients to immunise their children (see: Benefits may be linked to kids’ jabs). The inference being that welfare recipirents are lazy, dirty, and diseased.
- mandatory drug-testing for welfare recipients (see: Drug tests for more beneficiaries mooted). The inference being that welfare recipients – many of whom were in paid employment prior to the Global Financial Crisis – are now suddenly lazy drug addicts.
- actual drug and alcohol addicts recieving welfare assistance would not be drug tested. (see: Addicts escape beneficiary drug testing) Which kind of shows the pointlessness of this exercise; testing non-addicts – but leaving real addicts alone. Rationale: pandering to National’s ill-informed Radio Talk back constituency; rabid right wing; and other assorted low-information voters.
- a plan to stop welfare payments to beneficiaries subject to arrest warrants (see: Beneficiaries on warrants face cash cut) Inference; that those on welfare are all criminals.
- specifically nominating “kidnappers” as having their welfare cut (see: Kidnappers among targets in benefit plan) Inference; Really, really – welfare beneficiaries are criminals!! In reality, people convicted and imprisoned for serious crimes already lose any welfare payments. Is Bennett suggesting that people have their benefits stopped before due process of the law determining guilt or innocence?
- and umpteen media stories, “explaining” the high cost of social welfare, generated from Bennett’s office (see: Single mum on DPB for decades, Minister spells out $43,000 ‘salary’ claim for solo mum, Revealed: $100k-plus beneficiary homes, Beneficiaries cost $130,000 over lifetime, Beneficiaries’ bill $78 billion . Notice how the sums involved get bigger and bigger?). Inference; bloody welfare beneficiaries are sucking this country dry. Never mind that prior to 2007/08, and the Global Financial Crisis, most welfare recipients actually had jobs. In September 2008 there were 23,273 unemployed receiving a benefit. By September 2012, that number had more than doubled to 50,390 (see: MSD – September 2012 ). Did 27,117 suddenly decide that unemployment benefits of $200 a week was better than $600 or $700?! Only a right wing bene-basher of low intelligence might think so – and most of those bigots are not quite right in the head,
- and just in case the Talkback Radio mob are too thick to comprehend National’s smear-campaign, Key spelt it out in simple syllables; Food parcel families made poor choices, says Key
See previous related blogposts:
Paula Bennett shows NZ how to take responsibility
Paula Bennett: one strike and she’s out
How Paula Bennett and National are wasting our taxdollars
Bennett confirms: there are not enough jobs!
Paula Bennett on unemployment: spin baby, spin!
The real obscenity here is two-fold,
1. That a financial crisis emanating from the other side of the planet, involving greed, and a considerable degree of law-breaking, was able to ruin the lives of so many workers and their families – whilst the CEOs of many of the cotrporations involved pocketed big, seven-figure, “bonuses”.
2. That John Key and Paula Bennett both benefitted from a social welfare system that gave them access to tax-payer’s money; subsidised accomodation; free education; etc. Bennett was even able to buy herself a house using her WINZ benefit. (See previous related blogpost: Hon. Paula Bennett, Minister of Hypocrisy)
For both Key and Bennett to now manipulate public opinion against welfare beneficiaries to take the “heat” of National for rising unemployment is despicable.
Key has stated that he believes welfare reform would help lift people out of poverty. (See: Key admits underclass still growing)
This makes no sense.
It is not welfare “reform” that is needed – there is nothing wrong with our welfare system. It is working precisely as it was intended to during times of hardship for ordinary New Zealanders. (See previous related blogpost: Welfare ain’t broke – It’s the Jobs that ain’t there, John-boy!)
What is needed are jobs and a programme for growth. Welfare “reforms” is a useless red-herring being dangled in front of National’s constituents (who still hold to the fantasy that beneficiaries caused the GFC as an excuse to stay on welfare).
Until John Key, Paula Bennett, Bill English, et al, stop fixating on welfare “reforms, one thing is crystal clear – National has no plans to reduce unemployment by creating jobs. Their only agenda is to frighten or coerce people of welfare, and deeper into poverty.
This isn’t compassion – it’s criminal.
Compassion? A psychopath would show more feelings toward his/her cat.
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Johnny’s Report Card – National Standards Assessment y/e 2012
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To Whom It May Concern; the following Report Card detail’s Johnny’s achievements over the last four years.
The following contrasts compare four years, ranging from the end of 2008 to the end of this year, 2012.
Whilst it is acknowledged that the Global Financial Crisis impacted harsly on our society and economy, it is also fair to say that National has had the benefits of starting out with a sound economy (surpluses, low unemployment, etc) in 2008 and four years in office to make good on it’s election promises.
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Compassion
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Crime
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Employment/unemployment
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Environment
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Growth
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Incomes
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Inequality & Poverty
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Migration
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Social Welfare Safety Net
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Trade
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Outlook for 2013
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Petrobras withdraws – sanity prevails
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Sanity has prevailed – albeit perhaps temporarily – as Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, has announced it’s withdrawal from further prospecting in the Raukumara Basin, off the East Coast of New Zealand.
Petrobras was first granted a prospecting permit on 1 June 2010. The signing was met with approval by Dear Leader,
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John Key, Gerry Brownlee, and Marcelo Carlos Lins Vertis, on 1 June 2010
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Gerry Brownlee (then Minister of Energy) granted Petrobras a five-year exploration permit covering 12, 330 sq kilometres (red lined area in map below),
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Acknowledgement: unattachednz: Petrobras Protest
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Sixteen months later, on 5 October 2011, the MV Rena smashed into the Astrolabe Reef, also off the East Coast of New Zealand,
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Oil began leaking from the stranded ship, eventually dumping an estimated 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the sea,
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Much of this oil eventually washed onto East Coast beaches, killing an estimated 20,000 local birdlife,
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Volunteers cleaning up the mess were faced with heart-breaking sights like this,
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Meanwhile, John Key was otherwise engaged in more important government duties,
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Whilst it is unclear why Petrobras has backed away from continuing to exercise it’s license to prospect the Raukumara Basin for gas and oil, there are many New Zealanders who will be giving a sigh of relief.
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It was fairly obvious to most people with a modicum of common sense that New Zealand was ill-prepared for a major oil spill disaster, as happened in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago.
Our own Rena oil-spill created an enormous ecological disaster,
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Meanwhile, our witless National ministers can’t even get their stories straight. Energy Minister, Phil Heatley issued this explanational why Petrobras was leaving,
“I’ve met with them and they’ve said pretty clearly that it’s sort of technical reasons and prospectivity, meaning that they didn’t find enough to keep them sort of on the string so they want to regroup in Brazil. But we believe that there’s opportunities out there in the Raukumara Basin; others might pick up those particular permits and we might still see opportunities.”
See: Petrobras pulls out of NZ oil exploration
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If Petrobras “didn’t find enough to keep them sort of on the string ” – why would any other oil company be interested?! At $1 million a day, no oil company would be interested in taking the prospecting permit for the Raukumara Basin if there was nothing there.
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Indeed, if Petrobras is in dire financial straits, we are fortunate that they have pulled out now. One can only imagine a cash-strapped oil company, engaged in risky deep-sea drilling, and cutting safety corners .
The Pike River Mine disaster springs to mind what happens when companies ignore basic safety in the pursuit of profits.
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Indeed, the Royal Commission into the Pike River Mine disaster found that the company put profits ahead of safety,
The Royal Commission of Inquiry’s report on the Pike River Mine disaster has slammed mine management and the Department of Labour for a lax attitude toward health and safety.
It highlights a culture of “production and profits before safety” which was enforced by managers, and paints a damning picture of ignored safety warnings and sidelined investigations into previous accidents.
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Now consider a deep sea drilling rig operating under similar circumstances – taking into regard New Zealand’s lax laws under our current de-regulated safety regime (courtesy National, 1992) – and the potential for a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on 20 April 2010 becomes wholly apparent,
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The initial explosion killed 11 men working on the platform; injured 17 others; and released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean from a 10,680 metre deep well.
The water depth was approximately 1,260 metres.
The crisis lasted for eightyseven days.
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By comparison, the Rena stranding was on the sea surface and relatively easy to access,
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It took over five weeks for salvage crews to finish pumping 1,454 tons of oil from the Rena. After fourteen months, the wreck of the now-submerged vessel remains, in pieces, on the reef along with an unknown number of sunken containers.
Now compare the depth of where Deepwater Horizon was operating in the Gulf of Mexico (1,260 metres), with that of the Raukumara Basin,
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It took the Americans 87 days; with all their technological prowess; their Coastguard and navy; and billions of dollars, to cap an oil spill that was in waters 1.26 kilometres (1,260 metres) deep.
Parts of the Raukumara Basin are over 6 kilometers (six thousand metres) deep.
Despite constant questions to Key and his Ministers, there is no indication that New Zealand is in any way prepared to deal with an oil blow-out that is six kilometres under water. National has consistantly fobbed off questions of concern regarding this country’s ability to address a critical oil spill.
As recently as 24 October, this exchange took place between Dear Leader and Russell Norman, of the Green Party.,
Questions for oral answer
5. Oil and Gas Exploration—Deep-sea Oil-drilling and Environmental Risk
5. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement, “We’re not environmental bandits. If we don’t believe drilling can take place in a way that is environmentally sustainable and wouldn’t put at undue risk the environment, we wouldn’t go with it.”; if so, why?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) : I stand by my full statement, which included that we want to balance our economic opportunities with our environmental responsibilities; because it is true.
Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, when just this month Dayne Maxwell of Maritime New Zealand said about the Government’s oil response equipment: “Most of the response equipment that we have is designed for near-shore sheltered conditions, and really there isn’t available internationally any equipment specifically designed to operate in the rough kind of conditions offshore that we have in New Zealand.”?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, that is one person’s view. I think it is also worth remembering that if somebody gets a permit to go and undertake these activities in the exclusive economic zone, not only would this Government be filling a gap that was previously left open but also there would no doubt be conditions on that. Finally, as I said yesterday, there have been 50,000 wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Is the member arguing that all of those wells were a high risk and should have been closed up?
Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, when the head of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association said in April 2011: “You know, there is no absolute guarantee that disasters won’t happen, and if you had a major catastrophe, it would be just as bad as you have in North America.”—aka Deepwater Horizon?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I mean, the member asked me yesterday about the head of Anadarko. One of the things he did say to me in the meeting was that there were a lot of learnings that had come out of that situation, and that they can be applied so that those things do not happen again. Secondly, if the member is reflecting on a comment by an individual that basically says there are no guarantees in life, well, actually, that is true, but, on the same basis, the member will never get on a plane again, never get in a car again, never get on a train again, never do a lot of things he does, because the risk is that something very bad can happen.
Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk when a leak at 2.5 kilometres under water cannot be fixed by divers, and companies are forced to rely on robots and relief rigs, and this is diametrically different from operating in shallow water, like the case in Taranaki, where the deepest production well is only 125 metres deep?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: All of those issues in mitigation of any risk would have to be considered as part of an application to drill in the exclusive economic zone.
Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, given that the Gulf of Mexico disaster was stopped only when a second rig drilled a relief well, and this Government will not require a relief rig to be on site during deep-sea drilling operations in New Zealand?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is jumping to conclusions. He does not know what conditions will be set. But, in the end, I mean, this is really the fundamental problem, is it not, with the Green Party. What Green members are arguing is that everything contains some risk, so they do not want to do anything, except that they want to give lots and lots of money away, which is why they come up with the only solution that that person could come up with—print it!
Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was not a question about the Prime Minister’s former job as a currency speculator. It was about deep-sea oil production. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think we will consider it a draw at that point.
Dr Russel Norman: Given that the Prime Minister is putting enormous weight on this new piece of flimsy legislation, the exclusive economic zone Act, how does he think that this particular piece of legislation will plug an oil leak at 2.5 kilometres under water? Does he plan to shove the legislation in the hole? Does he think that might work?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is unlikely a couple of bits of paper will work. But let us cut to the chase here. We are a Government that is actually filling a gap that has been missing from our environmental protection. That member has been in the House for how long? And how many members’ bills has he put in about this issue? Oh, that is right—none. What he is focused on is printing money. That is his focus of attention.
Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was not about the Prime Minister’s currency speculation—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! On this occasion I invite the member to reflect on the question he asked. It kind of invited the sort of response he got.
Dr Russel Norman: Why has this Government taken a major anti-environmental turn since the 2011 election; is it because of the rising influence of Steven Joyce and others—environmental bandits within the National Party—who now dominate Cabinet and the Prime Minister?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Shock, horror! It is Steven Joyce’s fault. No. It is because this is a Government that wants, in an environmentally sensible and considered way, also to grow the economic opportunities for New Zealanders. That member wants to go down to the West Coast and say it is really bad that people are losing their jobs, potentially, at Spring Creek, while at exactly the same time he is stopping them getting a job down the road. I call that hypocrisy.
I have re-printed nearly all the text of that exchange to show the reader that,
- National has no answer to critical safety issues surrounding deep-sea drilling,
- National is willing to engage in risky commercial behaviour for short term gain,
- John Key has a cavalier, foolish attitude when it comes to serious issues like this.
Should foreign oil companies engage in deep sea oil drilling, and should a disaster similar to Deepwater Horizon occur, this is what we can expect as a consequence;
1. The economic fallout of any off-shore disaster involving a massive, uncontrollable oil-spill, will impact on our “clean and green” image and will cause incalculable harm to our tourist industry.
2. The harm to our fishing industry in an affected zone will result in lost exports and jobs.
3. As with the owners of the Rena, and BP’s reluctance to pay full costs for the Gulf of Mexico spill, we can expect the owners of a failed deep-sea drilling rig to evade paying for the full clean-up costs and compensation to local businesses that suffer as a consequence.
4. National will hold a Commission of Inquiry into any deep-sea oil spill.
5. Such a Commission will find the oil company at fault – but not National, who allowed deep-sea drilling to take place without adequate safety precautions in place, in the first place.
6. A token gesture of a ministerial “resignation” will take place. Then followed by John Key wiping his hands and insisting that,
“The Royal Commission found the Department of [insert name] itself did not have the focus, capacity or strategies to ensure [insert company] was meeting its legal responsibilities under health and safety laws, blah, blah, blah…”
See: Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson resigns in Pike River report fallout
National governments – they permit things to happen.
But never take responsibility.
I doubt John Key and Gerry Brownlee will be helping to clean up the next oil-fouled beach, somewhere on our coastline. That responsibility will go to others, who had no making in the decision to allow deep-sea drilling in our waters.
Never underestimate National politicians (and their supporters) to do dumb things.
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Sources
unattachednz: Petrobras Protest (31 March 2011)
OFW Magazine: Salvage crew returns to NZ ship (Rena, 13 October 2011)
NZ Herald: Rena: Oil clean-up chemical worries Greenpeace (25 Nov 2011)
Business Insider: BP Only Wants To Pay $15 Billion To US Authorities Over The Gulf Oil Spill (9 June 2012)
Business Insider: 19 Months Later, Here’s What We’ve Learned From The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (3 Dec 2012)
Radio NZ: Petrobras pulls out of NZ oil exploration (4 Dec 2012)
Previous related blogposts
On the smell of an oily rag (11 Oct 2011)
Additional reading
Gary Taylor: Sloppy oil mining rules too risky
Other blogs
TangataWhenua: Petrobras pulls out of Raukumara Basin
The Jackal: Petrobras sent packing
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John Key’s “pinch of salt” style of telling the truth
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Continued from: When spin doctors go bad
The truth? You can’t handle the truth!
When Jack Nicholson bellowed that famous line in the 1992 movie, “A Few Good Men“, few would have thought that it would apply twenty years later; down under here in Godzone; but that this time the tables would be turned against an apologist for the Establishment.
Mark Unsworth – a right-wing lobbyist for a professional “government relations consultancy” company, Saunders Unsworth, seems to find difficulty “handling the truth”. Especially when that truth comes from respected and reknowned environmental scientist, Dr Mike Joy…
On 16 November, the New York Times carried a story on the upcoming release of “The Hobbit“. The article made reference to Tourism New Zealand’s publicity campaign centering around a supposedly “100% pureNew Zealand” theme.
As we should all know by now, New Zealand is not “100% pure”. In fact we probably haven’t been “100% pure” for several decades now.
Dr Joy stated as much and was duly quoted by New York Times,
“There are almost two worlds in New Zealand. There is the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality.”
Green MP, Eugenie Sage, backed up Dr Joy’s brutal truth, and was quoted in the same article (from a statement she made in Parliament last month),
“We promote our country as 100 percent pure and 100 percent Middle Earth. But to swim in our rivers, which is the birthright of Kiwi kids — you cannot do it in the majority of the rivers that the Ministry for the Environment monitored.”
See: New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities
And you know what? They are telling the truth. The clear, unvarnished, simple truth.
Dear Leader John Key and Trade/Climate Change Minister Tim Groser Minister, have now waded into the ‘mix’.
Yesterday (26 Nov), Groser rebuked Environment scientist, Dr Mike Joy, by saying,
“It’s been used as a stick to beat New Zealand by environmental activists.”
See: Minister lashes out at environmentalists over 100% Pure
Today, Dear Leader added, just to make sure we understood what our politicians were “hinting” at,
“It’s like saying ‘McDonald’s, I’m loving it’ – I’m not sure every moment that someone’s eating McDonald’s they’re loving it . . . it’s the same thing with 100% Pure. It’s got to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt.”
Dr Joy replied,
“I’m not going to lie about this stuff.”
He’s right. Why should he lie?
Politicians know that the “100% Pure” is a marketing scam to bring tourists (and more importantly their cash) to New Zealand and can only succeed if the true nature of our degraded environment is kept secret.
After all, successful politicians like Dear Leader John Key are so used to manipulating facts and employing half-truths to serve their political purposes (usually getting elected), that they forget that the rest of the population are not politicians.
So, having created their own “dynamic” standard of ethics, Key, Groser, and minions like Unsworth, are taken aback when the general populace raise an eyebrow in disbelief when we are expected to take part in conning overseas tourists? Our response is, “They want us to what-?”
How many times has Key been caught out telling half-truths, or not being upfront with the public?How many election promises has he broken; side-stepped; back-tracked; or watered-down until his pledges were useless?
The trouble now seems to be that Key and Groser are now expecting the public to buy in to their truth-bending ways.
Not just “buy in” – but to be tacitly complicit with the scam.
John Key wants 4.4 million people to be like him.
A nation of ‘politicians’.
Surprisingly most of the the general populace won’t have a bar of it.
Key says that no one expects New Zealand to be “100% Pure”.
I wonder what he expects when he buys a bottle of “pure water” to drink?
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Sources
’100% Pure’ is like McDonald’s ad, says Key
Minister lashes out at environmentalists over 100% Pure
Other blogs
The New Zealand story: 100% pooer!
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When spin doctors go bad
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When Jack Nicholson bellowed that famous line in the 1992 movie, “A Few Good Men“, few would have thought that it would apply twenty years later; down under here in Godzone; but that this time the tables would be turned against an apologist for the Establishment.
Mark Unsworth – a right-wing lobbyist for a professional “government relations consultancy” company, Saunders Unsworth, seems to find difficulty “handling the truth”. Especially when that truth comes from respected and reknowned environmental scientist, Dr Mike Joy…
On 16 November, the New York Times carried a story on the upcoming release of “The Hobbit“. The article made reference to Tourism New Zealand’s publicity campaign centering around a supposedly “100% pureNew Zealand” theme.
As we should all know by now, New Zealand is not “100% pure”. In fact we probably haven’t been “100% pure” for several decades now.
Dr Joy stated as much and was duly quoted by New York Times,
“There are almost two worlds in New Zealand. There is the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality.”
Green MP, Eugenie Sage, backed up Dr Joy’s brutal truth, and was quoted in the same article (from a statement she made in Parliament last month),
“We promote our country as 100 percent pure and 100 percent Middle Earth. But to swim in our rivers, which is the birthright of Kiwi kids — you cannot do it in the majority of the rivers that the Ministry for the Environment monitored.”
See: New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities
And you know what? They are telling the truth. The clear, unvarnished, simple truth.
As early as July 2010, NIWA reported,
There is now considerable evidence that the combined effect of light exposure, bank damage by livestock, and poor water quality has substantially degraded the ecological health of pastoral streams. Nutrient enrichment, when combined with sediments and other stressors, can cause irreversible shifts in aquatic ecosystems, particularly in downstream lakes and estuaries.
[...]
The fact that some heavily polluted rivers – mostly in dairying areas – have turned the corner in recent years gives us cause for optimism for the future, says Dr Davies-Colley. For instance, the NRWQN shows water quality has improved in some Taranaki rivers and the Manawatu. A programme of widespread riparian fencing and planting in Taranaki probably explains most of the improvement there, he says.
But although science identified the effectiveness of these measures 15 years ago, implementation has been lacking, according to Mr Deans. “There’s a bit of fiddling while Rome burns, I’m afraid. Unless we take action, we’re going to see continuing water degradation and be in a worse position in five or ten years’ time.”
See: How clean are our rivers?
When we read articles in our own media such as this,
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… then we know we have a serious problem.
The Herald article above revealed in no uncertain terms, that we were turning our rivers into open toilets,
The results showed water quality was poor or very poor at 52 per cent of monitored river sites.
A further 28 per cent were graded “fair” – with a risk of illness for those swimming there.
Only 20 per cent of monitored river recreation sites were graded good or very good.
Health effects from swallowing water tainted with faecal micro-organisms or other bacteria can be unpleasant. They include diarrhoea or vomiting, and infections of the eye, ear, nose and throat.
See: Ibid
The New York Times article simply mirrors what we already know; our dirty little secret. A “secret” that is becoming more widely known with modern communications and tourists spreading the word,
But New Zealand’s reputation as a pristine place might not be exactly warranted. Since European colonization 150 years ago, as much as 90 percent of the country’s original wetlands have been drained to make way for towns, farms and roads. The wetlands are considered to be of international importance for supporting numerous species of birds, fish and plants.
For creatures like the black stilt, which lives in such places, it may be too late. There are only about 100 left, making it possibly the rarest wading bird in the world. It is just one species out of the 2,800 that the country’s Department of Conservation considers endangered.
In 2008, New Zealand ranked first among 146 countries in Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index , which ranks countries on the quality of their environmental policies. The report compares international data on criteria like habitat loss, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and protected marine areas.
In 2012, however, the country slipped to 14th. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, half of which are caused by the agriculture industry, are the fifth-highest per capita among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of free-market democracies. Most other countries in the O.E.C.D. have managed to reduce per capita emissions, but New Zealand’s have increased 23 percent since 1990 — from about 66 million tons of carbon dioxide in 1990 to about 83 million tons in 2009, according the country’s Environment Ministry .
Pure Advantage, a nonprofit group promoting green business, estimates that the country will overtake the United States in per capita emissions in less than eight years, putting it almost into the world’s top 10. But total emissions in New Zealand, which has a population of 4.4 million, are far lower than those of the United States, with 312 million people.
This month, New Zealand refused to commit to a second round of emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international agreement on reduction of greenhouse gases. Instead, it will align with several of the world’s largest emitters, including the United States, China and India, in negotiating an alternative agreement. That could be approved by 2015 and in effect by 2020.
“This is a day of shame for New Zealand. Our reputation as a good international citizen has taken a massive hit,” Moana Mackey, a member of Parliament who is the climate change spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, said in a statement.
See: New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities
Indeed, this very issue came up in a BBC interview last year when Dear Leader was challenged by Steven Sackur about our supposedly “clean and green” and “100% pure” image,
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See @ 10:50
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Key dismissed Dr Joy’s research as “Mike Joy’s view“.
Since when is a river too filthy to swim in considered a “viewpoint“?
For Mark Unsworth to then send this offensively-worded email, criticising Dr Joy’s research,
From: Mark Unsworth [mark@sul.co.nz]
Sent: Wednesday, 21 November 2012 12:15 a.m.
To: Joy, Mike
Subject: Ego TripDear Dr Joy
Is your ego so great that you feel the need to sabotage all the efforts made by those promoting tourism in NZ because of your passionate views on the environment ?
You have the right to hold strong views but you ,as an academic whose salary is paid for by others taxes, must also act responsibly .
Letting your ego run riot worldwide in the manner you did can only lead to lower levels of inbound tourism.You may not care given your tenure in a nice comfy University lounge ,but to others this affects income and jobs.
Give that some thought next time you feel the need to see your name in print in New York .And possibly think of changing your name from Joy to Misery-its more accurate
Cheers
Mark Unsworth”
See: Facebook Page
… is not just the hallmark of a narrow-minded person – but the height of futility.
Abusing a scientist doesn’t clean up the Manawatu River and make it suitable for swimming in.
Using gross insults such as “you guys are the foot and mouth disease of the tourism industry‘ will not change the tonnes of CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, etc, that we daily spew into the air.
And what does it mean to say “you have the right to hold strong views but you ,as an academic whose salary is paid for by others taxes, must also act responsibly” ?
Is Mr Unsworth suggesting that anyone paid by the taxpayer should keep the truth to him/herself? Isn’t that what authoritarian regimes try to do; squash dissenting opinions and hide facts from everyone?
And since when is detecting, recording, and reporting levels of pollution “holding strong views“?
If the pollution of waterways like the Manawatu simply a “strong view“, I challenge Mr Unsworth to drink a glass of ‘water’ from that river. (Note: have a medic with a stomach-pump standing by.)
Mr Unsworth; when it comes to choosing whether to believe an environmental scientist whose purpose it is to seek the truth about human impacts on our land and waterways - or to believe a spin doctor like you, who is paid to tell us whatever your employers want us to hear – who do you think we’ll believe?
Can you guess?
It beggers belief that someone with Mr Unsworth supposed education (?) cannot grasp a simple, inescapable fact; the truth about our degraded environment and poisoned rivers cannot be hidden. People are not fools, and eventually the truth will out.
The NY Times has called us on our claim to be “100% Pure”. The bullshit has, literally, hit the fan.
So what are we going to do about it?
Sulk and malign the messengers of the truth?
Or get our act together and clean up the mess that we, ourselves, have made in our own country?
Time to roll up our sleeves, Mr Unsworth…
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Sources
NZ Herald Editorial: Green growth potential not to be wasted
NIWA: How clean are our rivers?
Pure Advantage: PURE ADVANTAGE LAUNCHES NEW ZEALAND INTO THE GLOBAL GREEN RACE
New York Times: New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities
NZ Herald: Lobbyist stands by ‘ego trip’ email
Other blogs
The New Zealand story: 100% pooer!
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Silly Idea # 341,907,775 – increasing our population
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From the Silly Ideas files comes this local story from the NZ Herald, regarding a proposition from ExportNZ and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER),
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ExportNZ executive director, Catherine Beard, has suggested,
“One of the obvious ways to overcome these problems is to make New Zealand a bigger country with bigger companies. We need a national debate on population policy and how big we should be by 2060.
Once grown, the challenge is then keeping these companies in New Zealand so the country benefits from them. The alternative is selling out to other countries and losing talent overseas for better jobs and better pay.”
The NZIER suggested a population of 15 million for New Zealand, by 2060 .
NZIER deputy chief executive, John Ballingall, stated (with a straight face I assume),
“We need to ensure existing capability-enhancing policies are delivering value for money. Our immigration, tax, welfare and foreign investment policies need to enhance rather than restrict the ability of New Zealand firms to gain scale.
On-going efforts to cut less vital spending like Working for Families and interest-free student loans will ease the pressure on the kiwi dollar. Public spending has acted like a tax on the export sector.”
Leaving aside the issue of migration for a moment, the question that demands an answer is: do these people actually think through issues before making public pronouncements?
Because reading their comments and thinking through the issues to inevitable conclusions leads this blogger to conclude that NZEIR and ExportNZ indulge in superficial thinking and short-term, easy “solutions”.
For starters, what would be the consequences of a population of 15 million people?
This country already suffers from the following;
- 175,000 unemployed.
How does adding ten and a half million people help address those already jobless?
- More pollution.
I think most of us know by now that our “100% Pure” and “Clean and Green” reputation is now mostly a fiction to rival that of elves, goblins, hobbits, pixies, Easter bunny, Little Red Riding Hood, Mickey Mouse, et al.
With 52% of our rivers having water quality at poor or very poor, what would tripling our population do to our environment?
Think of 15 million people needing clean water to drink; cook with; shower in; and wash laundry in… and then think of 15 million toilets flushing…
How does adding ten and a half million people help our “100% Pure” image?
Do we downgrade to “75 Pure”?
“50% Pure”?
Or wait for those 15 million toilets to flush simultaneously and call ourselves “100% Pure Manure“?
- Housing
We already have a pressing, critical housing shortage. The cost of housing is spiralling further and further out of reach from New Zealanders.
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As our population has increased, so has housing affordability and availability worsened. Housing was more affordable fourty years ago and young New Zealanders are having to migrate to Australia to buy a home of their own.
The ‘market’ has been spectacularly inept at meeting demand. And when we do build houses, they tend to “dissolve in the rain”, as Bernard Hickey said with disturbing accuracy on 28 October.
How does adding ten and a half million people help address our critical housing problems?
- Transport
Something for every Aucklander to ponder: think of your roads now, clogged with cars, with a city of over 1.5 million people.
Now treble it.
Point made, I think?
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Perhaps the most laughable aspect to NZIER’s comments was when John Ballingall, said,
“On-going efforts to cut less vital spending like Working for Families and interest-free student loans will ease the pressure on the kiwi dollar.“
It may “ease the pressure on the kiwi dollar” – but how much extra pressure will be put on New Zealanders; their families; and students?
And what might possibly be the consequences of putting more pressure on Kiwi families and students? Clue: Australia.
There are six countries on this planet with populations ranging from 14,478,000 to 15,883,000;
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Malawi - 15,883,000
Burkina Faso - 15,730,977
Guatemala - 14,713,763
Mali - 14,528,662
Ecuador - 14,483,499
Cambodia - 14,478,000
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Source: List of countries by population
None of the above nations have a GDP, per capita, higher than ours. So can we deduce that tripling our population is no guarantee of increasing our exports and thereby our wealth?
I believe that would be the first safe conclusion.
The second safe contention might be the impact on our environment, with 15 million souls living within our shores, would result in environmental degradation that would seriously harm our Destination New Zealand tourism – a NZ$9.6 billion industry according to March 2012 figures.
The damage caused to our expanding tourism industry would most likely outweigh any benefits accrued from an increase in exports.
Third and last contention; trebling our population seems a simplistic and hopelessly lazy “solution” to a problem that appears more rooted in other factors such as National’s blind obedience to neo-liberal policies, and it’s refusal to address the high value of our dollar.
It seems bizarre that ExportNZ has wandered off on some weird tangeant, and ignored the real problems affecting exporters. It’s almost as if Ms Beard; her colleagues; and NZIER, have experienced a collective - dare I say it – brain fade.
If this is the best that our business leaders can come up with, then I despair for our country.
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John Key – more pledges, more broken promises?
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Continued from: As predicted: National abandons climate-change responsibilities
As if John Key’s broken promises on environmental concerns and reneging on pledges expressing “National’s commitment to addressing global climate change. We view this as the most serious environmental challenge of our time“ was not enough (see: John Key, Speech: Environment Policy Launch), Dear Leader has made a new committment to New Zealanders,
“Next year New Zealand will name a binding commitment to climate change – it will actually have a physical rate that we’re going to hit – but instead of being what’s called a second commitment period that is likely to run from 2012 to 2020, we’ll be able to set our own rules around that.”
See: Key defends decision not to stick with Kyoto Protocol
This blogger demands to know from John Key why on Earth we should take him at his word? This is a man who has broken so many pledges; back-tracked on so many policies; and paid lip-service to committments – that it has become a standing joke.
Some of Key’s previous statements on the environment include,
“What global Leaders know, and what the National Party knows, is that environmentalism and a commitment to economic growth must go hand in hand. We should be wary of anyone who claims that one can or should come without the other. And we should always measure a Government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record.
In the years ahead it will be increasingly important that New Zealand marries its economic and environmental policies. Global climate change awareness, resource shortages, and increasing intolerance of environmental degradation will give environmental policy renewed relevance on the world stage…
… And, in seeking the balance between environmental and economic goals, National will never forget that New Zealand’s outstanding physical environment is a key part of what makes our country special. Kiwis proudly value our forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans. They are part of our history and they must continue to define our future.”
See: John Key, Speech: Environment Policy Launch
“National will also ensure New Zealand works on the world stage to support international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations and we will work to achieve further global alliances that build on the goals agreed to at Kyoto.”
See: Ibid
Up until April/May 2010, Key maintained National’s supportive position on the ETS,
“I’d say it’s unlikely it would be amended.”
But by 9 November, National had completed a 180-degree turn on the the Kyoto Protocol, and completed what can only be deemed as a covert policy to repudiate the ETS and our committments to Kyoto. As Climate Change Minister Tim Groser said,
“The Government has decided that from 1 January 2013 New Zealand will be aligning its climate change efforts with developed and developing countries which collectively are responsible for 85% of global emissions. This includes the United States, Japan, China, India, Canada, Brazil, Russia and many other major economies.”
See: New Zealand Commits to UN Framework Convention
John Key has backtracked on the ETS and Kyoto Protocols – and now expects us to take him at his word at new committments announced today?
I don’t think so.
To rationalise National’s abandonment on Kyoto, Key stated,
“We are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of world emissions … New Zealand needs to play its part, it is playing its part, it’s already part of the emissions trading scheme and we’ve made quite a lot of other changes – we are there doing things about climate change. But I think we never wanted to be a world leader in climate change.”
I don’t think anyone could ever accuse Dear Leader of “wanting to be a world leader in climate change“. He’s right on that score.
As for his laughable assertion that “New Zealand needs to play its part, it is playing its part, it’s already part of the emissions trading scheme” – that is the same ETS that National has gutted by excluding agriculture from, despite prior pledges to include it by 2015.
By October of this year, National scrapped the five yearly State of the Environment Reports, despite John Key having endorsed it in September 2008.
See: National scraps crucial environmental report
No one could ever accuse John Key of keeping his pledges.
He is not to be trusted.
Addendum
For a full time-line of National’s slow dismantling of the ETS and backttracking on Kyoto Protocols, see: ETS – National continues to fart around.
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Other blogs
Tim Groser misleads Parliament
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As predicted: National abandons climate-change responsibilities
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Continued from: National ditches environmental policies
As predicted eight days ago, National has abandoned all pretences at meeting our Kyoto Protocol obligations, and cutting back on air pollution,
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As this blogger wrote on 1 November, John Key was adamant that National was committed to reducing greenhouse gases, and making environmental concerns a priority for his “government”,
” What global Leaders know, and what the National Party knows, is that environmentalism and a commitment to economic growth must go hand in hand. We should be wary of anyone who claims that one can or should come without the other. And we should always measure a Government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record.
In the years ahead it will be increasingly important that New Zealand marries its economic and environmental policies. Global climate change awareness, resource shortages, and increasing intolerance of environmental degradation will give environmental policy renewed relevance on the world stage…
… And, in seeking the balance between environmental and economic goals, National will never forget that New Zealand’s outstanding physical environment is a key part of what makes our country special. Kiwis proudly value our forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans. They are part of our history and they must continue to define our future.
Our environment isn’t just a bonus. It’s part of being a Kiwi. It underpins our enviable quality of life. It gives us an in-built edge over many of our economic rivals. I’m thinking, for example, of what Australia would do for our abundant water resources. And, increasingly, New Zealand’s environmental credentials will underpin our prosperity and our trade profile…
… One of National’s key goals, should we lead the next Government, will be to stem the flow of New Zealanders choosing to live and work overseas. We want to make New Zealand an attractive place for our children and grandchildren to live – including those who are currently living in Australia, the UK, or elsewhere…
… Labour has talked big talk on the environment but all too often it has failed to deliver.
• Labour promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% – but instead they have gone up by 20%.
• Labour promised a target of 90% renewable electricity by 2021 – but the actual proportion of renewables has sunk to an all-time low.
• Labour promised 250,000 hectares of additional trees by 2020 – but the past three years has seen the worst deforestation since records began… “
Source: John Key, Speech: Environment Policy Launch
Key was emphatic in demanding stronger environmental protections for our country,
” I urge you to read our environment policy in full. But let me pick out some highlights.
First, this policy underlines National’s commitment to addressing global climate change. We view this as the most serious environmental challenge of our time.
National believes that New Zealand, as a responsible international citizen, and as a country that values our clean, green environment, must act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This policy sets out our commitment to that goal.
National will set an achievable emissions reduction target for New Zealand. We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
National will also ensure New Zealand works on the world stage to support international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations and we will work to achieve further global alliances that build on the goals agreed to at Kyoto.
Our approach to future international negotiations will be to work with fellow countries on finding a pragmatic way to include large emitters like China, the United States, India, and Brazil. It’s clear that the absence of these large emitters from any post-Kyoto agreement would severely compromise global progress on this issue.
In order to achieve domestic emission reduction, National will pursue sound, practical environmental policies. We want to reduce emissions in ways that result in least cost to society and the economy.
To that end, we consider a well-designed, carefully balanced emissions trading scheme (ETS) to be the best tool available for efficiently reducing emissions across the economy. “
Source: Ibid
Up until April/May 2010, Key maintained National’s supportive position on the ETS,
“I’d say it’s unlikely it would be amended.”
But as New Zealanders have now come to expect, what National sez – and what National does, are often two completely different things.
If one was sufficiently uncharitable, one could say that National was highly dishonest as it back-tracked on it’s committments. But seeing as this blogger is not uncharitable, let’s just call them lying bastards and settle at that.
By November 2011 Environment Minister Nick Smith announced,
“ … It is not in New Zealand’s interests to include agricultural emissions in the ETS yet.
And true to word, in August of this year, National introduced legislation to remove agriculture and the egg industry from the ETS, entirely.
By October of this year, National had scrapped five yearly State of the Environment Reports, despite John Key having endorsed it in September 2008.
See: National scraps crucial environmental report
Today, National completed what can only be deemed as a covert policy to repudiate the ETS and our committments to Kyoto. As Climate Change Minister Tim Groser said,
“The Government has decided that from 1 January 2013 New Zealand will be aligning its climate change efforts with developed and developing countries which collectively are responsible for 85% of global emissions. This includes the United States, Japan, China, India, Canada, Brazil, Russia and many other major economies.”
See: New Zealand Commits to UN Framework Convention
Which is an outrageous admission from a National minister, and makes a mockery of Key’s fuzzy-wuzzy words just four years ago.
Groser went on to state,
“I want to emphasise that NZ stands 100% behind its existing Kyoto Protocol Commitment. We are on track to achieving our target – indeed we are forecasting a projected surplus of 23.1 million tonnes. Furthermore, we will remain full members of the Kyoto Protocol. There is no question of withdrawing. The issue was always different: where would we take our next commitment – under the Kyoto Protocol or under the Convention with the large majority of economies? We have decided that it is New Zealand’s best interests to do the latter. ”
If New Zealand was “on track to achieving our target – indeed we are forecasting a projected surplus of 23.1 million tonnes” – then why withdraw from the Second Kyoto Protocols?
This makes no sense unless National is continuing to bullshit the public.
This is another broken pledge from John Key, and a failure by National to meet it’s own committments.
Key and National will be held to account at the next election. Broken promises are not a sound basis on which to base an election campaign.
Addendum
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National’s media release is headed, “New Zealand Commits to UN Framework Convention” – as if National was undertaking meaningful committments to environmental protection.
It is a laughable attempt to ‘spin’ National’s broken committments in a positive light.
The truly offensive thing here is not that John Key’s credibility is now shot to hell; nor that National has shown itself to be utterly untrustworthy – but that the Nat’s Party (taxpayer funded) spin-doctors thought that the public was so stupid that we wouldn’t notice.
All they’ve done is drawn more attention to their lies, broken promises, and secret agendas.
Tossers.
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Sources
Government shuns second Kyoto committment
New Zealand Commits to UN Framework Convention
Additional
Fairfax Media: AgResearch stalls ‘damaging’ report
Radiolive: Nats are sacrificing our environment… for what?
Other blogs
Tumeke: John Key’s invisible New Zealand
Truthdig: The Fallacy Behind Environmental Protection and Economic Growth
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Bloomberg, Canute, and lapping waters at your feet
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“Frankenstorm” – the media-given nickname for Hurricane Sandy -was named after Frankenstein, the fictitious scientist who attempted to cheat the gods by creating life from lifelessness, and instead created the titular “monster”. Ironically, we may well have created “Frankenstorm” from our irresponsible polluting of the atmosphere.
Martyn ‘Bomber’ Bradbury raised a point in one of his blogposts on “Tumeke”, regarding the recent devasting storm that devastated the East Coast of the US,
” I love how a US election campaign that hasn’t mentioned global warming once is being impacted by a climate change Frankenstorm. Seeing as man made pollution is causing the planet to heat (a fact the right wing blogosphere in this country refuse to accept) these types of Frankenstorms will become more frequent and more powerful.
We should be introducing this storm as ‘welcome to your new winter America’.”
Source: Climate Change storm stomps on US election #Schadenfreude
Someone must have been paying attention – or arrived at the same conclusion – because a day later, the Mayor of New York, right-wing Republican/Independent billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, seems to have experienced a road-to-Damascus revelation,
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As Bloomberg said,
” Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be—given this week’s devastation—should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action. “
Indeed.
I guess it was inevitable. Eventually the effects of climate change would begin to impact on the coastal areas of the United States - one of the worst serial polluters on this planet.
Other nations – also guilty of dumping vast quantities of pollutants into the atmosphere – will also not escape the consequences of air pollution that has already begun to affect our climate.
In the 1970s, the world learnt that emitting CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons ) into the atmosophere was slowly destroying the ozone layer. This delicate layer of O3 is all that stands between us, and the full-on deadly solar UV radiation that would sterilise the surface of our planet.
See: The Ozone Hole - CFCs
And we were slowly wrecking it with a pollutant commonly found in refrigerators, aerosol cans, etc.
Thankfully, we realised the gravity of the crisis in the nick of time and began the phasing out of CFCs (except in certain situations) has meant that the Ozone Hole is slowly shrinking.
See: The Ozone Hole – 2012 Antarctic Ozone Hole Second Smallest in 20 Years
Possibly this was made possible because corporate muscle-flexing by the fossil-fuel industry (oil companies, coal mining, etc) and agricultural interests profits were not affected by the phasing out of CFCs. And because a direct correlation could be quickly shown between CFCs and Ozone depletion.
To our sorrow – especially those on the East Coast of the USA – we have been slower to accept a similar correlation between increasing levels of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide and the gradual increase in global temperatures.
Perhaps it’s because of the glacial slowness of this increase in temperature (measured in fractions of a degree) – like the slow progress of continental drift – coupled with a propaganda campaign financed by vested corporate interests (that I believe verge on criminal behaviour), that made clarity and decision-making unnecessarily cumbersome.
It has taken time. Whilst the science pointed steadily at climate change being an undeniable reality, politicians (especially the right wing variety) were less willing to commit, for fear of losing votes. And campaign donations.
I suspect that Hurricane Sandy may be the “wake up” call that the Human Race desperately needed.
Climate change – like the earlier Ozone Hole crisis – is a global problem. It will affect every nation on this planet; powerful or powerless; big or small; wealthy or poverty-stricken.
None will be exempt.
And ironically, it will be highly developed nations such as the United States that will be worst affected as the severity of storms increase and weather patterns become more extreme. The complex infra-structure of Developed Nations will be more vulnerable to the onslaught of extreme weather.
Mayor Bloomberg belatedly understands this reality. His city has been brought to it’s knees – humbled by forces of nature that are beyond our control.
Other coastal cities in the US, China, Japan, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere will be facing similar fates. It is only a matter of time.
Mayor Bloomberg has said,
“When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America.”
Nothing focuses the mind like a laser when we, and our children, are threatened by an external force.
In this case, that external force was “Frankenstorm Sandy”.
We can start by throwing out National, which has totally abrogated it’s responsibilities to curtail greenhouse gas emissions (and other pollutants), in the name of “economic growth”. (And failed dismally at both.)
See previous blogpost: ETS – National continues to fart around
See previous blogpost: National ditches environmental policies
Governments around the world no longer have a choice in this matter. It is no longer a “Game of Politics”, this is a matter which will affect us all. There is no place to escape to; no place to hide; no sanctuary for any of us.
Consider, if you will, that being an island nation, nearly all our major cities and towns are coastal. We are no less vulnerable to extreme storms than our American cuzzies and right about now I would not be buying any beach-front properties.
There is no escaping the consequences of what we have wrought.
Now we have to focus our human ingenuity at undoing what we have wrought.
We have run out of options and time.
Now’s good.
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King Canute of Bosham (Born circa AD 994 – died 12th November 1035)
Legend of the waves
King Canute is best remembered for the story of how he commanded the waves to go back in Bosham. According to oral tradition, he grew tired of flattery by the locals. “You are the greatest man that ever lived,” one would say. “O king, there can never be another as mighty as you,” another would say. “Great Canute, you are the monarch of all, nothing in this world would dare to disobey you.” When one such flatterer said the king could command the obedience of the sea, the King proved him wrong by practical demonstration on the foreshore.
“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey”.
So spoke the King, seated on his throne with the waves lapping around his feet. “Go back, sea!” he commanded time and again, but the tide continued as expected. Canute put it to his courtiers that the sea was not obeying him and insisted they stay there until they admitted it.
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National ditches environmental policies
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Continued from: ETS – National continues to fart around
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Continuing an analysis of National’s track record on environmental concerns…
“Green Key”
From a speech given by John Key in September, 2008 – about three months prior to being elected Prime Minister,
” What global Leaders know, and what the National Party knows, is that environmentalism and a commitment to economic growth must go hand in hand. We should be wary of anyone who claims that one can or should come without the other. And we should always measure a Government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record.
In the years ahead it will be increasingly important that New Zealand marries its economic and environmental policies. Global climate change awareness, resource shortages, and increasing intolerance of environmental degradation will give environmental policy renewed relevance on the world stage…
… And, in seeking the balance between environmental and economic goals, National will never forget that New Zealand’s outstanding physical environment is a key part of what makes our country special. Kiwis proudly value our forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans. They are part of our history and they must continue to define our future.
Our environment isn’t just a bonus. It’s part of being a Kiwi. It underpins our enviable quality of life. It gives us an in-built edge over many of our economic rivals. I’m thinking, for example, of what Australia would do for our abundant water resources. And, increasingly, New Zealand’s environmental credentials will underpin our prosperity and our trade profile…
… One of National’s key goals, should we lead the next Government, will be to stem the flow of New Zealanders choosing to live and work overseas. We want to make New Zealand an attractive place for our children and grandchildren to live – including those who are currently living in Australia, the UK, or elsewhere…
… Labour has talked big talk on the environment but all too often it has failed to deliver.
• Labour promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% – but instead they have gone up by 20%.
• Labour promised a target of 90% renewable electricity by 2021 – but the actual proportion of renewables has sunk to an all-time low.
• Labour promised 250,000 hectares of additional trees by 2020 – but the past three years has seen the worst deforestation since records began… “
Source: John Key, Speech: Environment Policy Launch
Key went on to say,
” I urge you to read our environment policy in full. But let me pick out some highlights.
First, this policy underlines National’s commitment to addressing global climate change. We view this as the most serious environmental challenge of our time.
National believes that New Zealand, as a responsible international citizen, and as a country that values our clean, green environment, must act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This policy sets out our commitment to that goal.
National will set an achievable emissions reduction target for New Zealand. We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
National will also ensure New Zealand works on the world stage to support international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations and we will work to achieve further global alliances that build on the goals agreed to at Kyoto.
Our approach to future international negotiations will be to work with fellow countries on finding a pragmatic way to include large emitters like China, the United States, India, and Brazil. It’s clear that the absence of these large emitters from any post-Kyoto agreement would severely compromise global progress on this issue.
In order to achieve domestic emission reduction, National will pursue sound, practical environmental policies. We want to reduce emissions in ways that result in least cost to society and the economy.
To that end, we consider a well-designed, carefully balanced emissions trading scheme (ETS) to be the best tool available for efficiently reducing emissions across the economy. “
National’s pledge to “consider a well-designed, carefully balanced emissions trading scheme (ETS) to be the best tool available for efficiently reducing emissions across the economy” has turned into a farce.
Up until April/May 2010, Key maintained National’s position on the ETS,
“I’d say it’s unlikely it would be amended.”
“Greenish-grey Key”
But by November 2011 Environment Minister Nick Smith announced,
“ … It is not in New Zealand’s interests to include agricultural emissions in the ETS yet.
On August of this year, National introduced legislation to remove agriculture and the egg industry from the ETS, entirely,
“…remove a specified entry date for surrender obligations on biological emissions from agriculture”.
See previous blogpost for full timeline: ETS – National continues to fart around
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So there we have it. From noble promises made in 2008 – to the abandonment of agriculture being included in the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Another broken promise from a broken “government”.
Did John Key ever really intend to include agriculture in the Emissions Trading Scheme? I suspect not. As with so many of National’s fine-sounding promises, it was all electioneering. They told us what we wanted to hear.
“Coal-black Key”
As if the gradual, covert, watering down the ETS was not enough – there are now indications that National intends to abandon New Zealand’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol,
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Key seemed more supportive of the Kyoto Protocols in 2008,
” National will also ensure New Zealand works on the world stage to support international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations and we will work to achieve further global alliances that build on the goals agreed to at Kyoto…
… So let me be very clear today: National is serious about reducing New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. We will ensure that a New Zealand ETS is introduced on 1 January 2010. “
As usual, John Key and the National Party have been big on rhetoric and promises – but poor on action. Sadly for New Zealand, the reality of their policies has been a sustained undermining of environmental protections.
From La La Land…
To really highlight what National thinks of environmental concerns, one need only consider their plans to scrap the vital State of the Environment Report.
There is an element of absurdity to this issue that is difficult to fathom,
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From the same speech John Key gave in September 2008,
” Environmental management has been further compromised by the poor performance of the Environment Ministry and the lack of independent monitoring of New Zealand’s progress towards environmental goals.
National believes Kiwis are ready to do things differently. We want to strengthen the incentives for co-operation in the pursuit of shared environmental goals.
So, National will invite stakeholders to work with us to reach agreement on up to 20 national environment goals to be achieved by specific dates, at the latest by 2030. To give those goals some real resonance we will introduce a new Environmental Reporting Act. This will require the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to conduct independent five-yearly State of the Environment Reports. “
This is the same pledge, to demand independent five-yearly State of the Environment Reports, that the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, now dismisses,
“Waiting five years to measure the state of our environment might be good enough for the opposition parties but not this Government.”
See: National scraps crucial environmental report
The absurd irony is that a National Minister is dismissing a policy that her boss – the Prime Minister – advocated four years ago! The five-yearly State of the Environment Reports was not Opposition policy – it was John Key’s idea!!!
This is Orwellian re-writing of history at it’s most ludicrous and laughable: dismissing National Party initiatives by blaming them on opposition parties!
Folks, New Zealand politics doesn’t get more Monty Pythonesque than this!
100% 48% Pure!
As a result of National’s covert disregard for our environment, ongoing poor environmental policies and actions have become manifest in ways that are becoming harder and harder to hide from public attention,
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What New Zealanders fail to comprehend is that the degration of our environment doesn’t just mean we’ll be able to swim less and less in our once-clean rivers – but that the rest of the world will soon begin to realise that our “100% Pure” and “Clean & Green” image” is bogus.
That’s when our reputation for environmental protection will be revealed as a sham and our exports for primary produce will begin to be affected.
How long will it be before international media turn their gaze upon our slowly degrading environment?
How long before our rivers are as polluted as China’s?
And how long before international markets turn away from our products, or pay us less for our produce?
If we’re going to treat our rivers as toilets, why should tourists come here to New Zealand?
If anything has demonstrated Dear Leader’s change-of-heart from 2008, it is his ‘sudden’ conversion from Environmental Champion to backer of the minining lobby.
Green Key is gone.
Coal-black Key has arrived.
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Track records, broken records
In 2008, John Key encouraged,
“I urge you to read our environment policy in full.”
So do I - Speech: Environment Policy Launch
In doing so you, the reader, will find out for yourself just how dishonest Key and National have been, and how badly our environment – which forms the economic backbone of this country – is now being systematically degraded for narrow, short-term gain.
True to form, even as John Key smiled benignly upon the country – he has let New Zealanders down.
“And we should always measure a Government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record.” – John Key, 6 September 2008
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Additional
Fairfax Media: AgResearch stalls ‘damaging’ report
Radiolive: Nats are sacrificing our environment… for what?
Other blogs
Tumeke: John Key’s invisible New Zealand
Truthdig: The Fallacy Behind Environmental Protection and Economic Growth
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