The reason for the lack of posting on this site in recent months hasn't been a lack of interest in politics, but a diversion of activity to the local government elections in Auckland City.
To read more go to:
www.cityvision.org.nz
http://cityvisionblog.blogspot.com
Normal transmission will resume from about mid-October.
This was a bolder budget than anticipated by anyone, and bites the bullet on several important long-term issues for New Zealand.
Saving – Partial compulsion
My feeling for quite a long time has been that as good an idea as Kiwisaver was, it was simply too light. It was a purely optional scheme and offered a maximum $5000 subsidy for any participating individual. A useful scheme to make it easier and more attractive to save, but not really significant enough to tackle our low savings record head on.
Today’s budget testosterone injection means that Kiwisaver will sit alongside the Cullen Fund as a centerpiece of a national savings strategy, The Cullen Fund ensures that the state will be in a position to fund NZ Super over the long run, while Kiwisaver will provide the vast majority of New Zealanders with a genuine opportunity to supplement NZ Super with retirement savings of their own.
People contributing to the scheme will receive a matching government tax credit of up to $20 per week to supplement their own savings (around $1000 per year), while critically, employers are being required to contribute (1% next year rising to 4% by 2001/12), after twenty years of on the whole shunning their responsibilities in this area.
There will no doubt be much carping about this from business lobby groups, but it is fundamentally a question of whether business wants to consider itself a part of society or not. Faced with long-term economic imbalances in our economy, all sectors of society have a duty (and in fact a self-interest) in resolving the problem by building our national savings.
Cullen’s move in this area has been bold and impressive. Budgets are best when they plan for long-term prosperity and cohesion. By biting the bullet on savings, Cullen is acting to ensure that our economy is on a more stable footing for the next couple of generations.
Transport
The announcement of $500m in capital funding for rail electrification in Auckland and other major transport initiatives is also about our long term economic and social health. This spending is non-inflationary as it actually builds economic infrastructure that will raise productivity, and it targets money to exactly where it is needed – critical projects that will make Auckland in particular a more livable city.
There is of course a lot more, which I will write on soon.
Elections in Scotland, Wales, and for local government in England over the weekend proved pretty inconclusive for anyone looking for decisive trends (Labour weak, but the Tories unable to forecefully take command), but confirmed the gut feelings of many observers that UK Labour does have some serious (if not insurmountable) challenges to overcome in order to win a fourth term of government. There are lessons in this for NZ Labour.
The Labour vote of has come in at what many consider to be the absolute base for the Party, while the Conservatives picked up 41% of the vote across England. So while New Labour is clearly unpopular, the Tories are simply performing credibly. They failed to significantly cut into Northern strongholds like Manchester and Birmingham, took fewer Councils of the Liberal Democrats than expected, and narrowly avoiding becoming the fourth party in Scotland.
All this to me is suggestive of a public that don't want a return to conservative rule, but are disallusioned by politics as practiced by New Labour. The rhetoric of choice that masks creeping privatisation of the health system, the banal infatuation with wealth and celebrity, increased costs in the tertiary education sector, and of course the utter folly of Iraq have all eroded support for a Party and an idea that most moderates and progressives in the UK still want to govern.
Fundamentally, New Labour has in its style and policies just departed to0 far from the core beliefs of the coalition that elected it to office so overwhelmingly in 1997.
NZ Labour must understand this if we are to win a fourth term, and I am convinced that in this regard, we are on the correct side of the ledger. On all of those core principles that have been backed by a solid 40% of the population for close to a decade, NZ Labour has largely steered a straight course. The privatisation agenda has been stopped in its tracks, the investment in core public services and capacity has been significant, the labour market has been actively intervened in to promote greater equality and fairness, and we have stayed true to our internationalist roots by wisely keeping out of the quagmire in Iraq.
Political management issues aside, this government has basically stayed faithful to the people that put it in place. So while also facing an invigorated Opposition, my feeling is very much that NZ Labour is in a far stronger position to hold on to a base of support large enough to make centre-left government possible in the medium to long run.
Jacqui Dean's Easter Trading ammendment Bill has suffered a deserved defeat, going down 84 votes to 37. Media coverage of the issue and vote has been predictably limp, with this TV3 report all I could find. It's sort of as if we've now had our big parliamentary conscience vote show-down for the year, and reporting on the issues around another significant decision would just be too much of a stretch.
As the more hardline of the two Bills, it was reasonably likely that Dean's effort would go down in a ball of flames, leaving the door open for the more moderate Chadwick Bill to pick up wider support from MP's sensitive to the finely tuned whinging of some in the retail sector. So, the fight goes on.
With the Child Discipline Bill tidied up with such astonishing speed, the legislative agenda has actually started chugging along again, and I think that debate on the Chadwick Bill is imminent.
Nonetheless, it's never a bad time to sign a petition for a good cause, so anyone out there who wants to oppose the Bill just contact me for an e-mailed copy.
The brouhaha over Sue Bradford’s child discipline Bill has overshadowed another looming conscience vote of great significance. National MP Jacqui Dean and Labour MP Steve Chadwick have each produced Bills that seek to dismember Easter trading restrictions. Both Bills, having been delayed by the Bradford Bill , are coming up for Second Readings in the House. For an outline of the legislative process to date (and a little commentary to boot), read Sue Bradford's speech to the House here.
The two Bills are each slightly different. Essentially Dean’s Bill allows for all shops to trade on Easter Friday and Sunday. Steve Chadwick’s Bill, tailored more for tourist towns like her own Rotorua, allows for Territorial Authorities to decide whether trading on these days will be permissible. While Chadwick’s Bill is the lesser of two evils, both are obnoxious pieces of legislation that ought to be rejected.
There are currently just 3.5 days per year on which trading is restricted (Easter Friday, Easter Sunday, Anzac morning, and Christmas Day). These 3.5 days represent small islands of quality time away from the pressures of work and consumerism. New Zealanders currently work some of the longest hours in the OECD, and with an increasing trend towards unpredictable casual and rotational work, and longer opening hours, many hundreds of thousands of New Zealand workers, particularly in retail, are truly starved of time with family and friends.
These remaining protected days allow our communities to come together to do the things that help knit us together – to commune around a BBQ, to attend Church (if that’s your thing), to enjoy a long weekend away from home, or simply for everyone to be together at home with no pressure to work and no pressure to buy.
The Anglican Archbishops have issued a thoughtful statement against the Bills in which they identify an absolutist market philosophy as being at the heart of the Bills, and question “Are we simply consumers, running like hamsters on a wheel in a marketplace, or is there more to us than this?"
I believe that this issue is one of conflicting rights. Is the unfettered right to buy goods and make money more important that the right of New Zealanders to spend quality time together in our communities? Both Bill’s, shamefully, support the first proposition. There should also be no mistake about the intentions of those in industry who have driven the Bill. Once the principle is established that trading on Easter Friday and Sunday is OK, then why would Anzac morning and Christmas Day be any different?
However, all is not lost! For an Anglican trade unionist such as myself, the Bills have provoked a dream coalition of Churches and Unions to come together to protect the Easter Holidays. Labour MP’s Darien Fenton and Mark Gosche are involved, as is United Future’s Gordon Copeland. Both the Catholic Bishop’s Conference and the Anglican Social Justice Commission have swung in behind, while the NDU, as the union for retail workers, has been campaigning hard on the issue for months.
One of the key initiatives of this coalition of Churches and Unions is a nationwide petition. Slightly frustratingly, it is as yet unavailable online, although this is being worked on. For those of us with an interest in the ability for the Progressive Christian community to engage and organise with the broader progressive community, this joint campaign could serve as a real model for future co-operation on social justice issues.
Anyone who wants petitions should feel free to contact me. You can also send an e-mail direct to targetted MP’s from the NDU website.
Not much time for blogging at the moment due to everything happening at once at work. Likely to be a bit like this through most of March.
