It is important to put the unprincipled and even unlawful 2005 election campaign tactics of the National Party into the historical context of the last twenty five to thirty years. This period saw the collapse of the "historic compromise" based on an a "long-term reconciliation with capitalism" by the working class represented by the Labour Party and trade unions. According to Bruce Jesson, this compromise had its origins in the first Labour Government elected in 1935.
The compromise had two sides to it and was embedded in a global context. Internationally, after WWII, there was an historical compromise struck between capital and labour. Its economic basis was the ‘Bretton Woods’ agreement that set up the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Its political basis was hammered out between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in talks at Yalta at the end of WWII. The threat of revolution subsided and capitalism was stabilised.
This compromise suffered meltdown from the late 1960s under the pressure of declining profit rates. By 1980, in the words of Senegalese Marxist economist Samir Amin, "the new single thought" of capitalist ideology guiding and justifying government policies all over the world had changed from Keynesian economic interventionism and welfare-statism, to one directing policies aimed at "systematically dismantling the specific rights that had been achieved by the workers and lower classes" .
In New Zealand this took the form of the introduction of neo-liberal ideas and policies by the 1984-1990 Labour Government in a country hitherto rightly considered as a bastion of Keynesian Welfarism. The neo-liberal "New Zealand Experiment", as it is known, is perhaps definitively depicted by Jane Kelsey in her book with that title. Bruce Jesson and others, including myself, have extensively explored the co-option of that Labour Government to the ends of the neo-liberal project.
Wayne Hope's forthcoming review of The Hollow Men in RED & GREEN 6 points out that the 2005 election campaign conducted by National was comparable to the 1987 Labour campaign. They were both based on "new right corporate backing and the construction of a deceptive communications strategy".
The same could also be said of the successful election campaigns of Labour in 1984 and National in 1990. These Governments were both elected on platforms which espoused the conventional class-compromise policies of the post-WWII period, but were Trojan-horse vehicles for the implementation of economic policies that were straight out of the neo-liberal text books.
In 1984 Lange was elected to end the oppressive regime of Muldoon but his finance minister, Roger Douglas, led the charge to corporatise, deregulate and privatise the economy. The electorate was deceived. Similarly, Jim Bolger was elected in 1990 on the slogan of creating a "decent society’, but Ruth Richardson carried on the ‘Rogernomics’ agenda with benefit cuts, the anti-union Employment Contracts Act and the continued sell-out of state-owned assets to her private business backers. Again the voters were betrayed.
In all three cases the electors were conned by clever election campaigns that concealed the real agendas that were to be implemented after the elections. National in 2005 systematically set out to repeat the feat. The fact that they failed (only by a whisker) does not detract from the perfidy involved. Nicky Hager’s book reveals how Ruth Richardson and Roger Douglas were intimately involved in the far-right take-over of National by Don Brash.
MMP was supported in 1993 by an electorate who saw proportional parliamentary representation as a way of breaking the treacherous two-party election swindle that they had endured for a decade or more. However, it was one of the MMP parties that next let the voters down (in 1996) with Winston Peters’ NZ First enabling the National Party to continue in office despite having camapigned against National before the election.
The Alliance and a Helen Clark-led Labour Party finally got their game together and began to turn the new-right revolution around with their victory in the 1999 election. But rust and the new-right never sleep.
The far-right cabal of Deane, Shirtcliffe, Richwhite, Fay, Myers, Heatley, Friedlander, Foreman, Colman, Farmer, Trotter (Ron) and others like Kerr, Scott and Brash from Treasury have been actively promoting the Freidman/Hayek, "Washington Consensus" strategy for more than two and a half decades. Their projects include the infiltration of Treasury, the colonisation of the Labour Party, the campaign against MMP, the formation of the Act party to make best advantage of MMP, the Brash coup in the National Party, and support for his surrogate John Key.
Hager exposes the key roles of these and other players like Michael Bassett and the perhaps less known supporting roles of the likes of Margaret Austin and David Caygill. The New Zealand working class public has been subject to the Machiavellien machinations of these political plotters for far too long.
Nicky Hager describes the Brash challenge to be leader of National as "not so much a leadership coup as a political coup, in which a group of ACT Party and others from the radical right succeeded in gaining control of the National leadership... This coup set the stage for a two-year fight in which Brash and his backers from the 1980s and 1990s tried to regain control of government." The revelations of the shadowy intrigue behind the election attack-ads on the Greens and Labour by the Exclusive Brethren cult, and their links with Brash (that are more fully exposed in Hager’s book), probably stymied this attempt in 2005.
But we can be sure this right-wing group who comprise some of the richest and most powerful people in New Zealand, whose agenda is intensely anti-working class (using that term in its broadest sense), is still actively plotting and planning to take power in the next election if they can. It is crucial to stop this happening and the left can thank Nicky Hager for providing, with The Hollow Men, an important tool to help do this.
Brash lost the support of his big-business backers because he failed to win the election and because his cover was blown. Brash’s far-right credentials and support was exposed to the sunlight of public scrutiny.
The myth now being promoted by former Brash supporters like spin-manager Richard Long is that Key is a "centrist". To think that John Key offers a ‘softer’ alternative to Brash would be a mistake. His speech to the 2006 National Party annual conference showed his true politics. He called for lower taxes and attacked public spending, red tape and overly protective labour laws.
Commentator Chris Trotter called this speech "pure Business Roundtable-speak" and noted that Key was the natural successor to Brash – the insurance policy for the right wing.
As Hager comments, National will "continue along the same tracks" under Key. "It would continue with the same strategies, the same political alliances and the same hidden agendas." If Brash is the archetypal Hollow Man, then Key is Hollow Man 2.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Reply to James (2)*
(*See comment to previous post)
You are, I think, being somewhat disingenuous with your criticism of Jill Ovens and her leadership of the SFWU members in the Air NZ outsourcing dispute. Rather than acting "immaturely and irresponsibly", Jill Ovens showed remarkable courage and strength of purpose in resisting strong pressure to concede to the EPMU/Air NZ-negotiated solution. Her determination reflected that of the members who stood with her.
The SFWU members involved voted five times to reject any attempts to destroy their existing CEA. They opposed accepting cuts in wages and conditions. They also strongly opposed the attempt to separate them from their fellow Air NZ workers who are parties to their collective. They were entitled to expect their CEA to be honoured and to maintain the position that they would renegotiate it when they had the right to take industrial action. This was a perfectly rational and responsible stand to make as workers and trade unionists.
The EPMU is to be congratulated for its democratic processes but democracy, as you well know, is constrained by the choices put before the electorate. The EPMU position was that the choice was between ‘outsourcing’ and ‘an in-house solution’. This thrust the EPMU members into a catch-22 situation where they were damned to accept cuts no matter which choice they made. It was a bit like giving a condemned person the choice of which form of execution they wanted. The dispute was allowed to be framed in the employer's terms. The SFWU chose to fight the dispute under their own terms, as was their right.
This fight included two highly successful mass-mailing campaigns to the Board of Air NZ. One was a postcard campaign. Thousands of signatures were collected from members of the public at places like markets. I helped to collect these and there was huge support for the workers and opposition to outsourcing. The other campaign was an email one organised through the international Labour Start website. This campaign had the biggest response ever recorded by Labour Start.
The SFWU position was simply "no concessions". The only way to stop cuts is to first of all reject the employer's right to make them. Workers of today do not have the right to give-back the hard won gains of workers of the past. Their duty to the class is to fight to retain and improve those past conquests. If this is your frame of reference then you will come up with the course of action that was decided upon by the SFWU members and Jill Ovens as their (elected) regional secretary.
As to some of your other analysis; it is an open question as to whether the Government’s position would have remained fixed. Governments have been known to change their minds under public pressure. A campaign by two of the country’s most powerful private-sector unions, supported by trade-union-backed Labour MPs, could have tested the Clark administration’s resolve. The public could expect a publicly-owned entity like Air NZ to listen to and act upon public concerns.
The argument that the Government cannot legally interfere in the running of state-owned enterprises and companies does not hold water. This is a matter of political will. Government’s can change laws or apply political pressure to appointed boards; it happens all the time. The neo-liberal legislation and assumptions from the 1980s that still underpin social and economic life in New Zealand should be challenged when they conflict with the public interest and the interests of workers.
The point about being in a "far worse" situation under the Swissport deal is also a moot one. The savings and conditions proposed by Swissport look remarkably similar to the in-house deal eventually struck. Before the SFWU pulled out of the process, experts from both unions examined the Swissport proposals as part of the process of developing an "in-house solution". Swissport’s $20 million-per-year claimed savings were shown to be only about $12 million worth: the same amount of saving being made by the EPMU/Air NZ-agreed deal. So workers would not have been "in a far worse position". In fact the Swissport outsourcing would have resulted in all the workers receiving a full redundancy pay-out, whether they were staying or transferring over. Only workers who leave the job in the face of a cut in basic pay rates will now get redundancy. The $3000 sweetener goes nowhere near making up for the lost wages or the forgone redundancy payout.
Similarly, you say that the workers are now not subject to a "retendering process" and are therefore are in a better position to claw the cuts back in the future. Two things: First, the threat of "retendering" in the form of outsourcing has not been permanently removed. It could be argued, as Jill Ovens has in fact done, that it will now be more attractive for the outsourcing to proceed in the future because the transition costs have largely been eliminated by the cuts already made in this current deal. Second, the workers’ position is not stronger but weaker, because, for one thing, they are separated off in a separate CEA from their fellow Air NZ workers who were previously under the same CEA.
The best way to claw back cuts is to not concede them in the first place. The SFWU have not conceded their wages and conditions, they have not been separated off into a different CEA; that is why the SFWU can rightly claim a victory. Of course there is still a fight on to maintain wages and conditions, but not conceding them in the first instance was a pre-condition to engaging in that fight. The SFWU is at least on the front foot, unlike the EPMU members who have a hard slog just to get back to where they were before.
You are, I think, being somewhat disingenuous with your criticism of Jill Ovens and her leadership of the SFWU members in the Air NZ outsourcing dispute. Rather than acting "immaturely and irresponsibly", Jill Ovens showed remarkable courage and strength of purpose in resisting strong pressure to concede to the EPMU/Air NZ-negotiated solution. Her determination reflected that of the members who stood with her.
The SFWU members involved voted five times to reject any attempts to destroy their existing CEA. They opposed accepting cuts in wages and conditions. They also strongly opposed the attempt to separate them from their fellow Air NZ workers who are parties to their collective. They were entitled to expect their CEA to be honoured and to maintain the position that they would renegotiate it when they had the right to take industrial action. This was a perfectly rational and responsible stand to make as workers and trade unionists.
The EPMU is to be congratulated for its democratic processes but democracy, as you well know, is constrained by the choices put before the electorate. The EPMU position was that the choice was between ‘outsourcing’ and ‘an in-house solution’. This thrust the EPMU members into a catch-22 situation where they were damned to accept cuts no matter which choice they made. It was a bit like giving a condemned person the choice of which form of execution they wanted. The dispute was allowed to be framed in the employer's terms. The SFWU chose to fight the dispute under their own terms, as was their right.
This fight included two highly successful mass-mailing campaigns to the Board of Air NZ. One was a postcard campaign. Thousands of signatures were collected from members of the public at places like markets. I helped to collect these and there was huge support for the workers and opposition to outsourcing. The other campaign was an email one organised through the international Labour Start website. This campaign had the biggest response ever recorded by Labour Start.
The SFWU position was simply "no concessions". The only way to stop cuts is to first of all reject the employer's right to make them. Workers of today do not have the right to give-back the hard won gains of workers of the past. Their duty to the class is to fight to retain and improve those past conquests. If this is your frame of reference then you will come up with the course of action that was decided upon by the SFWU members and Jill Ovens as their (elected) regional secretary.
As to some of your other analysis; it is an open question as to whether the Government’s position would have remained fixed. Governments have been known to change their minds under public pressure. A campaign by two of the country’s most powerful private-sector unions, supported by trade-union-backed Labour MPs, could have tested the Clark administration’s resolve. The public could expect a publicly-owned entity like Air NZ to listen to and act upon public concerns.
The argument that the Government cannot legally interfere in the running of state-owned enterprises and companies does not hold water. This is a matter of political will. Government’s can change laws or apply political pressure to appointed boards; it happens all the time. The neo-liberal legislation and assumptions from the 1980s that still underpin social and economic life in New Zealand should be challenged when they conflict with the public interest and the interests of workers.
The point about being in a "far worse" situation under the Swissport deal is also a moot one. The savings and conditions proposed by Swissport look remarkably similar to the in-house deal eventually struck. Before the SFWU pulled out of the process, experts from both unions examined the Swissport proposals as part of the process of developing an "in-house solution". Swissport’s $20 million-per-year claimed savings were shown to be only about $12 million worth: the same amount of saving being made by the EPMU/Air NZ-agreed deal. So workers would not have been "in a far worse position". In fact the Swissport outsourcing would have resulted in all the workers receiving a full redundancy pay-out, whether they were staying or transferring over. Only workers who leave the job in the face of a cut in basic pay rates will now get redundancy. The $3000 sweetener goes nowhere near making up for the lost wages or the forgone redundancy payout.
Similarly, you say that the workers are now not subject to a "retendering process" and are therefore are in a better position to claw the cuts back in the future. Two things: First, the threat of "retendering" in the form of outsourcing has not been permanently removed. It could be argued, as Jill Ovens has in fact done, that it will now be more attractive for the outsourcing to proceed in the future because the transition costs have largely been eliminated by the cuts already made in this current deal. Second, the workers’ position is not stronger but weaker, because, for one thing, they are separated off in a separate CEA from their fellow Air NZ workers who were previously under the same CEA.
The best way to claw back cuts is to not concede them in the first place. The SFWU have not conceded their wages and conditions, they have not been separated off into a different CEA; that is why the SFWU can rightly claim a victory. Of course there is still a fight on to maintain wages and conditions, but not conceding them in the first instance was a pre-condition to engaging in that fight. The SFWU is at least on the front foot, unlike the EPMU members who have a hard slog just to get back to where they were before.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Reply to comment on SFWU, EPMU, Air NZ dispute
Thanks for putting the EPMU position James. The point is that outsourcing and the deal cooked up in response to this threat by the EPMU and Air NZ both had the same outcome for the workers involved - wage cuts of several thousand dollars per year on average.
The SFWU position was to reject outsourcing (resulting in wage cuts), AND also reject making concessions to Air NZ (resulting in wage cuts).
The EPMU position was that it was better for the union leadership to engineer (excuse the pun) the wage cuts than let Swissport do it. The result was similar for the workers.
EPMU members and non-union workers on IEAs now face taking significant cuts in take-home pay while SFWU members' conditions are protected by their existing CEA up until it expires at the end of June, and for twelve months after that date or until a settlement on a renegotiated CEA is reached.
The point about the publicity campaign is that there wasn't one - not against outsourcing as such - because the EPMU stepped in and offered to negotiate a "competitive in-house solution" to achieve the same or similar labour-cost savings, so outsourcing was removed from the agenda (except as a background threat).
The SFWU opted out of this "in-house" process in January. At this point the EPMU could have done likewise, called the company's bluff on outsourcing and mounted a robust legal, public and political campaign against the company's attacks. After all Air NZ is a publicly-owned company and, despite company law, is vulnerable to public and political pressure. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain from such an approach. The jobs were not able to be outsourced off-shore; they were not under threat of disappearing altogether.
It seems the EPMU's greatest worry (listen to Little on Checkpoint radio) was that many of the members wanted to take redundancy. Even in this respect the negotiated deal lets workers down. If the jobs were outsourced to Swissport every single Air NZ worker leaving the job OR transferred over to the new employer (at least those covered by CEAs) would have stood to gain a redundancy pay-out. Under the EPMU/Air NZ deal only those leaving the job will get the full pay-out. The $3000 (or $4000) incentive payment will not make up for that loss of redundancy pay for many workers who want to stay on.
This is not to say that I am arguing for outsourcing. An inspection of Air NZ board minutes from 18 months ago revealed that the outsourcing bogey was raised precisely and only to extract concessions from workers - one way or another. There was, I believe, an illegal breach of good faith involved in this whole process of deliberately setting out to break an existing CEA. Air NZ should be before the courts on this account, not just on the grounds that they did not provide adequate information etc.
My contention is that the combined legal, political and industrial muscle of the SFWU and EPMU should have been brought to bear on the management. Back room deals with the employer by one union can only undermine workers strength.
Don't forget there are important issues for all unionised workers involved here - not the least the sanctity and value of a negotiated and signed-off CEA.
"An injury to one, is an injury to all", the old Wobblies' slogan, comes to mind.
The SFWU position was to reject outsourcing (resulting in wage cuts), AND also reject making concessions to Air NZ (resulting in wage cuts).
The EPMU position was that it was better for the union leadership to engineer (excuse the pun) the wage cuts than let Swissport do it. The result was similar for the workers.
EPMU members and non-union workers on IEAs now face taking significant cuts in take-home pay while SFWU members' conditions are protected by their existing CEA up until it expires at the end of June, and for twelve months after that date or until a settlement on a renegotiated CEA is reached.
The point about the publicity campaign is that there wasn't one - not against outsourcing as such - because the EPMU stepped in and offered to negotiate a "competitive in-house solution" to achieve the same or similar labour-cost savings, so outsourcing was removed from the agenda (except as a background threat).
The SFWU opted out of this "in-house" process in January. At this point the EPMU could have done likewise, called the company's bluff on outsourcing and mounted a robust legal, public and political campaign against the company's attacks. After all Air NZ is a publicly-owned company and, despite company law, is vulnerable to public and political pressure. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain from such an approach. The jobs were not able to be outsourced off-shore; they were not under threat of disappearing altogether.
It seems the EPMU's greatest worry (listen to Little on Checkpoint radio) was that many of the members wanted to take redundancy. Even in this respect the negotiated deal lets workers down. If the jobs were outsourced to Swissport every single Air NZ worker leaving the job OR transferred over to the new employer (at least those covered by CEAs) would have stood to gain a redundancy pay-out. Under the EPMU/Air NZ deal only those leaving the job will get the full pay-out. The $3000 (or $4000) incentive payment will not make up for that loss of redundancy pay for many workers who want to stay on.
This is not to say that I am arguing for outsourcing. An inspection of Air NZ board minutes from 18 months ago revealed that the outsourcing bogey was raised precisely and only to extract concessions from workers - one way or another. There was, I believe, an illegal breach of good faith involved in this whole process of deliberately setting out to break an existing CEA. Air NZ should be before the courts on this account, not just on the grounds that they did not provide adequate information etc.
My contention is that the combined legal, political and industrial muscle of the SFWU and EPMU should have been brought to bear on the management. Back room deals with the employer by one union can only undermine workers strength.
Don't forget there are important issues for all unionised workers involved here - not the least the sanctity and value of a negotiated and signed-off CEA.
"An injury to one, is an injury to all", the old Wobblies' slogan, comes to mind.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Bogus polls oppose anti-child-bashing bill
Bogus polls of the "have you stopped beating you wife?" variety have been rolled in a last gasp deperate bid to stop Sue Bradford's anti-child-bashing bill being passed into law. The question asked in these polls was: "Do you think people should be able to lightly smack their children?" (or words to that effect). This question has next to nothing to do with the effect and intent of the anti-bashing bill.
It is not an anti-smacking bill, although it is repeatedly referred to as such. This is disinformation spread by those who want to have the legal right to use on their kids whatever force they deem necessary.
If the question asked in the polls had been: "Do you think the law should give parents (or presumably, guardians) a legal defence for heavily hitting/ bashing/ whipping their kids?" You would have got 80% saying it shouldn't.
The effect of Sue Bradford's (now the Labour Party's?) bill merely removes the 'section 59' defence of allowable corrective punishment that often prevents successful prosecutions of child-beaters. I am with Helen Clark on this one.
Surely we do not believe in mob-rule led by bible-bashing bigots and reinforced by their "hollow" opinion-creating polls.
A valid point could be made about the violence done by capitalist society to people as a matter of course. The lack of action on the increased levels of severe hardship affecting many thousands of children at the poverty-stricken (and stranded) end of society is inconsistent with the concern shown by the chattering classes and the government over this bill, but still, the change in the law will help create a culture of non-violence towards kids, and that can only be a good thing.
It is not an anti-smacking bill, although it is repeatedly referred to as such. This is disinformation spread by those who want to have the legal right to use on their kids whatever force they deem necessary.
If the question asked in the polls had been: "Do you think the law should give parents (or presumably, guardians) a legal defence for heavily hitting/ bashing/ whipping their kids?" You would have got 80% saying it shouldn't.
The effect of Sue Bradford's (now the Labour Party's?) bill merely removes the 'section 59' defence of allowable corrective punishment that often prevents successful prosecutions of child-beaters. I am with Helen Clark on this one.
Surely we do not believe in mob-rule led by bible-bashing bigots and reinforced by their "hollow" opinion-creating polls.
A valid point could be made about the violence done by capitalist society to people as a matter of course. The lack of action on the increased levels of severe hardship affecting many thousands of children at the poverty-stricken (and stranded) end of society is inconsistent with the concern shown by the chattering classes and the government over this bill, but still, the change in the law will help create a culture of non-violence towards kids, and that can only be a good thing.
SFWU claims victory over Air NZ outsourcing and cuts
The Service and Food Workers' Union (SFWU) is claiming victory in its battle with Air NZ . The company has conceded that the 250 SFWU check-in and services workers must remain on their existing contract (and conditions). Despite intense pressure from many quarters, Air NZ has failed to force these workers to accept cuts in their pay and conditiions under threat of outsourcing (which would have meant cuts to their pay and conditions). These workers decided neither option was acceptable, and were willing to fight outsourcing.
Meanwhile the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) is putting to the vote a deal they have negotiated to voluntarily give back conditions of the 1500 Air NZ baggage handlers and frontline staff they represent. If they had stood firm with the SFWU they could have stopped outsourcing (with a public campaign to put pressure on the majority owner, the Government, and the Board) AND held onto their existing Collectve Employment Agreement.
It would be good to see the EPMU members reject the Air NZ/EPMU deal that cuts take-home pay by several thousand dollars per worker (on average) - probably too much to hope for although the SFWU stand has won support from EPMU members.
SFWU northern region secretary, Jill Ovens, and EPMU general secretary, Andrew Little, aired their views on the Checkpoint National Radio programme last Monday. This is the link to the radio broadcast:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/ckpt/air_nz_union_disagreement
Meanwhile the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) is putting to the vote a deal they have negotiated to voluntarily give back conditions of the 1500 Air NZ baggage handlers and frontline staff they represent. If they had stood firm with the SFWU they could have stopped outsourcing (with a public campaign to put pressure on the majority owner, the Government, and the Board) AND held onto their existing Collectve Employment Agreement.
It would be good to see the EPMU members reject the Air NZ/EPMU deal that cuts take-home pay by several thousand dollars per worker (on average) - probably too much to hope for although the SFWU stand has won support from EPMU members.
SFWU northern region secretary, Jill Ovens, and EPMU general secretary, Andrew Little, aired their views on the Checkpoint National Radio programme last Monday. This is the link to the radio broadcast:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/ckpt/air_nz_union_disagreement
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Outrage at result of police-rape trial
The outrage over the police-rape case is palpable and almost universal. In one (admittedly unscientific) poll carried out by the Stuff website, 80% do not believe Rickards should get his job back - that is because 80% think he is guilty. The juries were clearly misled and manipulated in the two trials Rickards faced.
Louise Nicholas testified that as a teenager she was forced to have sex with Rickards and his two former associates. The most horrific act she described occurred in a Rotorua flat where the three men serially raped her and then a police baton was forcibly inserted into her vagina and her anus by one of the policemen (Shipton) while Rickards and the other policeman (Schollum) cheered him on from the sidelines.
Rickards admitted having so-called 'group-sex' with the 18 year-old Nicholas. The story the three accused rapists tell is that the the sex was consensual and the baton incident never took place despite two other policemen testifying that such an abhorrent event was boasted about at the time.
She says she was raped, they say she wasn't - it was down to whose word you could take as true, and New Zealand juries, faced with such a choice, will more often than not believe the police.
EXCEPT that two of the accused (Shipton and Schollum) had already been found guilty of a chillingly similar rape and were in jail serving eight-year sentences for that. The rape which Shipton and Schollum were convicted on also involved the use of a police baton to sexually assault their victim. This was legally-suppressed information. How could any jury accept their denials in the Louise Nicholas case, or in the most recent case involving an unnamed women, if the jury members had been made aware of this extremely pertinent fact?
Our rage is due to our perfectly reasonable belief that justice was not done, nor seen to be done, in these trials. The accused got away with, not murder, but a crime equally repugnant - and the people committing the crime were the ones we turn to for help when a crime is committed against us.
Not only women are outraged; all men who have any sense of justice are equally appalled at the actions of these policemen and the "not guilty" verdicts.
The other great concern is that such a man as Rickards could rise so high in the police hierarchy. Police culture needs to change, and change rapidly and thoroughly. Lets hope the current police leadership, the ones who rightly prosecuted Rickards and his mates, clean out the stables with a large broom and a high pressure hose.
The thought of Rickards returning to his job in charge of the Auckland Police District is too deplorable to contemplate. He should be drummed out of the police completely.
Louise Nicholas testified that as a teenager she was forced to have sex with Rickards and his two former associates. The most horrific act she described occurred in a Rotorua flat where the three men serially raped her and then a police baton was forcibly inserted into her vagina and her anus by one of the policemen (Shipton) while Rickards and the other policeman (Schollum) cheered him on from the sidelines.
Rickards admitted having so-called 'group-sex' with the 18 year-old Nicholas. The story the three accused rapists tell is that the the sex was consensual and the baton incident never took place despite two other policemen testifying that such an abhorrent event was boasted about at the time.
She says she was raped, they say she wasn't - it was down to whose word you could take as true, and New Zealand juries, faced with such a choice, will more often than not believe the police.
EXCEPT that two of the accused (Shipton and Schollum) had already been found guilty of a chillingly similar rape and were in jail serving eight-year sentences for that. The rape which Shipton and Schollum were convicted on also involved the use of a police baton to sexually assault their victim. This was legally-suppressed information. How could any jury accept their denials in the Louise Nicholas case, or in the most recent case involving an unnamed women, if the jury members had been made aware of this extremely pertinent fact?
Our rage is due to our perfectly reasonable belief that justice was not done, nor seen to be done, in these trials. The accused got away with, not murder, but a crime equally repugnant - and the people committing the crime were the ones we turn to for help when a crime is committed against us.
Not only women are outraged; all men who have any sense of justice are equally appalled at the actions of these policemen and the "not guilty" verdicts.
The other great concern is that such a man as Rickards could rise so high in the police hierarchy. Police culture needs to change, and change rapidly and thoroughly. Lets hope the current police leadership, the ones who rightly prosecuted Rickards and his mates, clean out the stables with a large broom and a high pressure hose.
The thought of Rickards returning to his job in charge of the Auckland Police District is too deplorable to contemplate. He should be drummed out of the police completely.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
"putting the ‘Labour’ back into the Labour Government"
Former Alliance President and Co-leader, Jill Ovens, played a pivotal role in opposing state-owned Air New Zealand’s attacks on the jobs of its workers at last weekend’s Labour Party (90th Anniversary) Conference in Rotorua.
Ovens is the Northern Region Secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) which represents many of the affected workers, along with the Engineering and Manufacturing Workers Union (EPMU).
On Friday, at the pre-conference meeting of Labour affiliated unions, Ovens acquainted Finance Minister Michael Cullen with the latest Air NZ proposals to outsource the jobs of 1700 frontline and baggage-handling staff to private contractors.
These proposals mean the workers’ existing employment agreements would lapse and they would be forced to accept cuts in wages and conditions on the pain of not being rehired by the outside contractors. Air NZ has told the workers they can only avoid outsourcing by accepting an ‘in house’ solution that would make savings of $20 million a year at the workers’ expense.
This move, along with similar ones in other areas of the company’s operation, threaten to turn this strategic transport asset that is more than eighty per cent owned by the people of New Zealand into what Ovens described as a "virtual company"; just a brand name with very few directly employed workers.
"Unions to Govt: Save our jobs" (front page headline of Monday’s NZ Herald)
At the remit workshop on Saturday, Ovens succeeded in getting an anti-privatisation remit put on the conference floor for discussion. This resolution reaffirmed the Labour Party’s "commitment to the principle of a democratic society’s right to choose public ownership, social goals and non-market answers over market economics answer to economic issues ...".
Ovens was designated to speak in support of the remit at the Sunday plenary session. Her call on behalf of the unions for the Labour-led Government to buy back the remaining small percentage of privately-owned shares in Air NZ was enthusiastically applauded by the seven hundred delegates.
The call she made for the Government to amend the appropriate legislation so that central and local government can directly intervene in the public interest in the management of state and local-government owned enterprises was also supported, as was the appeal for the Government to urge the board of Air NZ to oppose the company management’s contracting-out moves.
Ovens, SFWU National Secretary John Ryall and EPMU head Andrew Little met privately with Prime Minister Helen Clark on Saturday afternoon to communicate their opposition to the outsourcing strategy of Air NZ. It is understood they received a sympathetic hearing.
Labour conference finds its voice
It is somewhat ironic that Ovens, so recently a leader of the Alliance, was instrumental in "putting the ‘Labour’ back into the Labour Government" (as NZ Herald political commentator John Armstrong put it). Armstrong observed that rank-and-file delegates combined with the union affiliates to remind the government that instead of a high-skilled, high wage economy, many workers are experiencing loss of jobs and conditions through restructuring and outsourcing by cost-cutting managers. He said that their frustration was not surprising, but he found it surprising that it was expressed so openly at a Labour Party conference.
"For years," he wrote, "Labour Party conferences have been dead zones when it comes to genuine debate – something sacrificed to preserve an image of complete and utter unity.
"Quite why the party should suddenly find its voice, if only in mild fashion, might have several explanations."
Armstrong surmised that it might be because members were inspired by the celebration of the Labour Party’s 90-year heritage and they felt the need for renewal and/or reaffirmation of ‘core values’. He also thought they might have been emboldened by the fallibility shown by the party leadership over the election spending fiasco.
In my estimation, a more likely reason that conference delegates found their "voice" was that they have been galvanised by the attacks on Labour and the unions by enemies of the working class. The implications of the election of a fundamentalist, far-right, National-led government are too grave to allow to occur. The recent month-long lock-out of 600 distribution workers by Progressive Enterprises is a warning that cannot be ignored.
On the other hand, the support given by fellow unionists and the wider community to the Progressive workers has reminded everyone how strong ‘the people’ are when they are mobilised. What better motivation could there be for Labour members to reclaim their conference and speak out?
It must be said that Ovens clearly helped the Labour conference to "find its voice". Without her determined intervention, the "public ownership" remit would not have been discussed on the conference floor.
From Alliance to Labour
Ovens left the Alliance to join Labour earlier this year at the urging of SFWU delegates who were supporting her in the election for the position SFWU northern region secretary. The issue of public ownership and control of strategic economic assets that Ovens helped advance to the centre stage of the Labour conference would have met with equally strong support at an Alliance gathering. She found that Labour conference delegates shared many of the same concerns as members of the Alliance.
Ovens must be heartened to have found such a strong echo for her ‘Alliance voice’ among Labour activists. What’s more it was an echo that resonated into the highest levels of the Labour Party and the government it leads.
Ovens is the Northern Region Secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) which represents many of the affected workers, along with the Engineering and Manufacturing Workers Union (EPMU).
On Friday, at the pre-conference meeting of Labour affiliated unions, Ovens acquainted Finance Minister Michael Cullen with the latest Air NZ proposals to outsource the jobs of 1700 frontline and baggage-handling staff to private contractors.
These proposals mean the workers’ existing employment agreements would lapse and they would be forced to accept cuts in wages and conditions on the pain of not being rehired by the outside contractors. Air NZ has told the workers they can only avoid outsourcing by accepting an ‘in house’ solution that would make savings of $20 million a year at the workers’ expense.
This move, along with similar ones in other areas of the company’s operation, threaten to turn this strategic transport asset that is more than eighty per cent owned by the people of New Zealand into what Ovens described as a "virtual company"; just a brand name with very few directly employed workers.
"Unions to Govt: Save our jobs" (front page headline of Monday’s NZ Herald)
At the remit workshop on Saturday, Ovens succeeded in getting an anti-privatisation remit put on the conference floor for discussion. This resolution reaffirmed the Labour Party’s "commitment to the principle of a democratic society’s right to choose public ownership, social goals and non-market answers over market economics answer to economic issues ...".
Ovens was designated to speak in support of the remit at the Sunday plenary session. Her call on behalf of the unions for the Labour-led Government to buy back the remaining small percentage of privately-owned shares in Air NZ was enthusiastically applauded by the seven hundred delegates.
The call she made for the Government to amend the appropriate legislation so that central and local government can directly intervene in the public interest in the management of state and local-government owned enterprises was also supported, as was the appeal for the Government to urge the board of Air NZ to oppose the company management’s contracting-out moves.
Ovens, SFWU National Secretary John Ryall and EPMU head Andrew Little met privately with Prime Minister Helen Clark on Saturday afternoon to communicate their opposition to the outsourcing strategy of Air NZ. It is understood they received a sympathetic hearing.
Labour conference finds its voice
It is somewhat ironic that Ovens, so recently a leader of the Alliance, was instrumental in "putting the ‘Labour’ back into the Labour Government" (as NZ Herald political commentator John Armstrong put it). Armstrong observed that rank-and-file delegates combined with the union affiliates to remind the government that instead of a high-skilled, high wage economy, many workers are experiencing loss of jobs and conditions through restructuring and outsourcing by cost-cutting managers. He said that their frustration was not surprising, but he found it surprising that it was expressed so openly at a Labour Party conference.
"For years," he wrote, "Labour Party conferences have been dead zones when it comes to genuine debate – something sacrificed to preserve an image of complete and utter unity.
"Quite why the party should suddenly find its voice, if only in mild fashion, might have several explanations."
Armstrong surmised that it might be because members were inspired by the celebration of the Labour Party’s 90-year heritage and they felt the need for renewal and/or reaffirmation of ‘core values’. He also thought they might have been emboldened by the fallibility shown by the party leadership over the election spending fiasco.
In my estimation, a more likely reason that conference delegates found their "voice" was that they have been galvanised by the attacks on Labour and the unions by enemies of the working class. The implications of the election of a fundamentalist, far-right, National-led government are too grave to allow to occur. The recent month-long lock-out of 600 distribution workers by Progressive Enterprises is a warning that cannot be ignored.
On the other hand, the support given by fellow unionists and the wider community to the Progressive workers has reminded everyone how strong ‘the people’ are when they are mobilised. What better motivation could there be for Labour members to reclaim their conference and speak out?
It must be said that Ovens clearly helped the Labour conference to "find its voice". Without her determined intervention, the "public ownership" remit would not have been discussed on the conference floor.
From Alliance to Labour
Ovens left the Alliance to join Labour earlier this year at the urging of SFWU delegates who were supporting her in the election for the position SFWU northern region secretary. The issue of public ownership and control of strategic economic assets that Ovens helped advance to the centre stage of the Labour conference would have met with equally strong support at an Alliance gathering. She found that Labour conference delegates shared many of the same concerns as members of the Alliance.
Ovens must be heartened to have found such a strong echo for her ‘Alliance voice’ among Labour activists. What’s more it was an echo that resonated into the highest levels of the Labour Party and the government it leads.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
No Tolls!
Letter to editor; NZ Herald, published Monday, 16 October, '06
Transit NZ says new roads will be delayed for a decade if Aucklanders do not accept tolls. Auckland road users are being held to ransom. Who will be next?
Road building should be funded out of taxes, as it always has been. If road user charges need to be raised, or road taxes increased, then that is a political decision that needs to be faced up to. We do not need to create a whole new private profit-making tolling industry to raise funds for roads.
Transit is planning to spend $150 million to set up toll gantries and other tolling infrastructure in Auckland. This would pay the interest for at least three years on the $800 million loan Transit says is necessary to finish the planned roads by 2015.
Working class people will bear the brunt of road tolls. They often have no choice but to use the roads to get to work, and this is likely to be at times of peak toll rates. Toll avoidance will mean new roads for the rich and traffic jams for the poor.
There needs to be an all-out campaign to stop Transit NZ implementing road tolls.
Transit NZ says new roads will be delayed for a decade if Aucklanders do not accept tolls. Auckland road users are being held to ransom. Who will be next?
Road building should be funded out of taxes, as it always has been. If road user charges need to be raised, or road taxes increased, then that is a political decision that needs to be faced up to. We do not need to create a whole new private profit-making tolling industry to raise funds for roads.
Transit is planning to spend $150 million to set up toll gantries and other tolling infrastructure in Auckland. This would pay the interest for at least three years on the $800 million loan Transit says is necessary to finish the planned roads by 2015.
Working class people will bear the brunt of road tolls. They often have no choice but to use the roads to get to work, and this is likely to be at times of peak toll rates. Toll avoidance will mean new roads for the rich and traffic jams for the poor.
There needs to be an all-out campaign to stop Transit NZ implementing road tolls.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Oppose mayoral asset grab
This letter to the editor appeared today (Sat. Sept 9, 2006) in the NZ Herald.
Dear Editor,
The Alliance Party and Pam Corkery campaigned successfully to save the Port of Auckland from being fully privatised in the early 1990s. Mike Lee, chairman of the ARC, completed the job last year by overseeing the buyback of the 20% of shares in the Port that were sold in 1992 by the Waikato Regional Council.
Now the big four mayors of the Auckland isthmus want to grab the $1.3 billion of ARC controlled assets, including the Port, to use to as a short-term fix for municipal spending that should be funded from local body rates and prudent borrowing. This blatant power play by the mayors, seemingly given the stamp of approval by Helen Clark and the Government, must be opposed by a similar campaign to that which saved the Port from sale a decade and a half ago.
The central plank of the mayors' plan is the abolition of the democratically elected ARC and its replacement by a patently undemocratic Greater Auckland Council which the mayors themselves and appointed business cronies will undoubtedly dominate.
The Alliance opposes this move and calls on all Aucklanders to mobilise in support of retaining ARC control of the region’s assets.
Yours etc.
Len Richards
(Alliance Co-leader)
Dear Editor,
The Alliance Party and Pam Corkery campaigned successfully to save the Port of Auckland from being fully privatised in the early 1990s. Mike Lee, chairman of the ARC, completed the job last year by overseeing the buyback of the 20% of shares in the Port that were sold in 1992 by the Waikato Regional Council.
Now the big four mayors of the Auckland isthmus want to grab the $1.3 billion of ARC controlled assets, including the Port, to use to as a short-term fix for municipal spending that should be funded from local body rates and prudent borrowing. This blatant power play by the mayors, seemingly given the stamp of approval by Helen Clark and the Government, must be opposed by a similar campaign to that which saved the Port from sale a decade and a half ago.
The central plank of the mayors' plan is the abolition of the democratically elected ARC and its replacement by a patently undemocratic Greater Auckland Council which the mayors themselves and appointed business cronies will undoubtedly dominate.
The Alliance opposes this move and calls on all Aucklanders to mobilise in support of retaining ARC control of the region’s assets.
Yours etc.
Len Richards
(Alliance Co-leader)
Monday, August 28, 2006
Labour fails supporters
The failure of the Labour Government to 'close the gaps' over the last six years, as revealed by two recent Ministry of Social Development (MSD) reports, proves the urgent need for a different approach based on the needs of people rather than on the demands of the ‘greedies’ and their quest for more profits.
Hardship
The NZ Living Standards 2004 report reveals that under Labour from 2000 to 2004 the numbers of Maori and Pacific people in severe economic and social hardship has roughly doubled.
Over the four years 57% of Pacific people remained in a degree of hardship, but the numbers in severe hardship jumped from 15% to 27%.
The comparable figures for Maori were 40% in hardship, with 17% in severe hardship, up from 7%.
Overall in New Zealand, 24% of people are living in hardship. Those in severe hardship have jumped from 5% to 8% (that is a 60% increase). It is beneficiary families with children that make up the highest proportion of this group.
Housing costs and overcrowding
According to The Social Report 2006, the number of people living in households paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs has doubled in sixteen years. In 2003/04, 21.4% of people were in this category, up from 10.6% in 1988. For Maori and Pacific people the figure had been as high as 36% and 48% respectively in the late 1990s, and in 2001(the latest figures):
Hardship
The NZ Living Standards 2004 report reveals that under Labour from 2000 to 2004 the numbers of Maori and Pacific people in severe economic and social hardship has roughly doubled.
Over the four years 57% of Pacific people remained in a degree of hardship, but the numbers in severe hardship jumped from 15% to 27%.
The comparable figures for Maori were 40% in hardship, with 17% in severe hardship, up from 7%.
Overall in New Zealand, 24% of people are living in hardship. Those in severe hardship have jumped from 5% to 8% (that is a 60% increase). It is beneficiary families with children that make up the highest proportion of this group.
Housing costs and overcrowding
According to The Social Report 2006, the number of people living in households paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs has doubled in sixteen years. In 2003/04, 21.4% of people were in this category, up from 10.6% in 1988. For Maori and Pacific people the figure had been as high as 36% and 48% respectively in the late 1990s, and in 2001(the latest figures):
- 21% of Maori households spent roughly a third or more of their income on housing needs.
- 23% of Pacific households were in the same situation.
- 42% of other non-Pakeha households, many of whom are new immigrants, were paying in excess of 30% of their income on housing.
The report also says Pacific people are most likely to be living in overcrowded conditions. In 2001:
- 43% of Pacific people lived in homes requiring extra bedrooms.
- 5% of the total population were living in severely overcrowded accommodation. Pacific people and Maori made up 79% of that group (41% and 38% respectively).
The report said there is a clear correlation between poverty and levels of overcrowding, with those unemployed, those locked out of gaining educational qualifications and those in rental accommodation being more likely to live in these adverse and unhealthy conditions.
Little change under Labour
Working class Pacific and Maori voters gave Labour the support it needed for the last General Election. The electorates where these votes came from, like Mangere where 72% voted Labour, remain the poorest in New Zealand and the MSD reports reveal there has been little change since a Labour-led government came to office in 1999. The future for these voters looks just as bleak under the Labour-led Government’s programme.
Some improvements came in the first three years when the Alliance was a junior coalition party to Labour. It was then, for example, that income related rents (no more than 25% of income) were introduced for Housing NZ state houses.
Under the recently introduced "Working for Families" policy the poorest people have lost ground. Beneficiary incomes have never been restored to the levels that existed before the 1991 National Government cuts.
The MSD shows that inequality continues to increase. The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ has continued to widen from 1988, including during the years from 2001 to 2004 under Labour-led governments.
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