Let them eat cake!
20/05/10 16:44 Filed in: News Releases
The gap between rich and poor is set to widen after today’s budget, says Jim Anderton MP for Wigram.
“This National led government has shown its true colours today. The CEO of Telecom who reportedly earned $7 million last year, will now get an extra $6608 per week. Those on $600,000 will take home about an extra $500.
Meanwhile working Kiwis on $50,000 will spend about an extra $23 on increased GST at the supermarket, so their tax cut will be a miserly $5.50. More likely it will be wiped out by inflation.
Those on low incomes will pay more as a result of an increase in GST from 12.5% to 15%.
“What is this government saying to families on lower incomes in today’s budget? ‘Let them eat cake!’ It says ‘don’t worry about an increase in GST and rising food prices, because the rich consume more than the poor, so they’ll pay more in GST. Is that meant to make low income families feel better? ‘You might not be able to afford to buy much food - but just think of the GST you’re saving when you don’t eat?’
“There is nothing in this budget to help grow the economy or create jobs. John Key has got rid of $2 billion worth of Research and Development set up by the last Labour-Progressive government and replaced it with his own personal science advisor and just over a quarter of what scientists would have got under our government.
“New Zealand’s rates of increasing income inequality were amongst the worst in the world according to OECD figures. We only started to close that gap under a Labour-Progressive government. Now the gap will widen again.”
A recent UNICEF survey of the well-being of children puts New Zealand almost last - 24th out of 25 countries. It measured immunisation levels, infant death and early death from
injury and illness.
“Here’s what a respected Professor of Epidemiology in New Zealand said recently ‘In New Zealand, social injustice is killing and maiming our children on a grand scale.’ Nothing in this budget is going to change that.
“If you voted for this government because you thought John Key’s ‘rag to riches’ story might rub off on the country, now you know he is no Robin Hood - more a Sheriff of Nottingham”, Jim Anderton said today.
“This National led government has shown its true colours today. The CEO of Telecom who reportedly earned $7 million last year, will now get an extra $6608 per week. Those on $600,000 will take home about an extra $500.
Meanwhile working Kiwis on $50,000 will spend about an extra $23 on increased GST at the supermarket, so their tax cut will be a miserly $5.50. More likely it will be wiped out by inflation.
Those on low incomes will pay more as a result of an increase in GST from 12.5% to 15%.
“What is this government saying to families on lower incomes in today’s budget? ‘Let them eat cake!’ It says ‘don’t worry about an increase in GST and rising food prices, because the rich consume more than the poor, so they’ll pay more in GST. Is that meant to make low income families feel better? ‘You might not be able to afford to buy much food - but just think of the GST you’re saving when you don’t eat?’
“There is nothing in this budget to help grow the economy or create jobs. John Key has got rid of $2 billion worth of Research and Development set up by the last Labour-Progressive government and replaced it with his own personal science advisor and just over a quarter of what scientists would have got under our government.
“New Zealand’s rates of increasing income inequality were amongst the worst in the world according to OECD figures. We only started to close that gap under a Labour-Progressive government. Now the gap will widen again.”
A recent UNICEF survey of the well-being of children puts New Zealand almost last - 24th out of 25 countries. It measured immunisation levels, infant death and early death from
injury and illness.
“Here’s what a respected Professor of Epidemiology in New Zealand said recently ‘In New Zealand, social injustice is killing and maiming our children on a grand scale.’ Nothing in this budget is going to change that.
“If you voted for this government because you thought John Key’s ‘rag to riches’ story might rub off on the country, now you know he is no Robin Hood - more a Sheriff of Nottingham”, Jim Anderton said today.
Budget 2009 Speech
28/05/09 12:30 Filed in: Speeches
This is a budget that has all the competence that you would expect from the people responsible for Melissa Lee’s Mt Albert by-election campaign.
The good news: Inflation is no longer a problem. We have finally got the low inflation economy the National Party always said would deliver us its dream economy. How’s that working out now?
National has produced a lacklustre budget that Bill Birch would have been proud of.
In troubled times, when the economy is rocking on the waves of global economic storms, the government has responded weakly.
Not with a vision for the future.
Not with bold steps that will lead New Zealand on a developmental path.
But with a weak, uncertain, sitting on their hands response.
Governments around the world are investing in the future.
This one has slashed the future.
This one is the Broken Promise budget.
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
It is cutting nearly as much out of science and research in the primary sector as it is investing in infrastructure.
Government spending on science and research, on a like for like basis, falls from around a billion government dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in National’s replacement.
With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit.
This is huge cut in science and research.
It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy.
It is a disaster for the future of our most important economic sector.
Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of this recession stronger.
New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research.
That is what David Carter repeatedly promised.
He promised it as recently as this year.
Farmers and our agri businesses will be looking it up.
And they will find not increases, but cuts.
It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.
I want to turn to some other features of this disappointing budget.
I want to draw the House’s attention to the table on Page 55 of the fiscal strategy report.
In there the government points to its expected increases in nominal average wages over the next four years.
If you deduct those from the CPI – the cost of living index - there will be no increases in real wages for four years.
No increase in real wages for four years!
This is the curious branch of economics that says the way to make New Zealand better off is to make everyone worse off.
Not since the eighties have we had an economy that didn’t increase real wages for four consecutive years.
It’s hardly conducive to keeping working New Zealanders here.
If they were leaving before, wait until John Key’s policies result in no increase in real wages for four years.
I have to give the National party credit for one thing.
There was a time in the past when National would have said the way to fix that would be to spend up on tax cuts.
At least Bill English and John key have now accepted that tax cuts do not stimulate the economy.
But that is not what they said when they wanted to get elected.
They promised New Zealanders tax cuts.
They now say they can’t afford them. Fair enough. But that’s not what they said when they wanted a vote.
Back then they said their promises took into account the worsening economic climate.
Back then they said
“National has structured its economic package to take account of the changing international climate.”
They weren’t telling the truth when they made the promises that got them elected.
They said: “Our tax cut programme will not require any additional borrowing”.
They weren’t telling the truth when they made the promises that got them elected.
The only way that promise could have been true is if his tax policy wouldn’t require borrowing because it was never going to go ahead anyway - and John Key knew that even before the election
Last year John Key said his tax policy was "appropriate for the current conditions" and would require "no additional borrowing.”
There is no excuse for this.
John Key was here in the eighties and he was here in the nineties when governments got elected and immediately tossed out the promises they got elected on.
I was in here in 1991.
I remember the Bolger government got away with the 1991 budget to begin with.
People gave them the benefit of the doubt that the economy had been wrecked by Roger Douglas and needed hard measures.
But over time it was a disaster.
This one will be too.
Those tax cuts needed to be cancelled.
But they should never have been promised in the first place.
John Key owes New Zealand an apology for getting himself elected on a promise that could never have been kept.
Did he know before the election that the international economic situation was deteriorating, or did he only find out when the Treasury told him?
Neither possible answer reflects well on his fitness to lead a country through a crisis.
I want to turn in the time left to the cuts to the Super Fund.
This is very sneaky politics.
Cutting the Super Fund now reduces the ability of any government in the future to provide for super at anything like existing rates or retirement age.
So what Bill English is doing is pushing out by ten years the hard decisions about the huge tax increases or cuts to super that will be needed to make super affordable.
He has calculated he won’t be finance minister in ten years.
He is right about that!
After this budget he won’t be finance minister in three years.
But he has delivered an enormous burden to future taxpayers.
The affordability of superannuation in the future must decline because we are no longer putting aside something now to pay for some of it in the future.
It was going to pay for around fifteen percent of the future cost.
Now it will pay for less than seven per cent.
That means the age of eligibility for superannuation will be increased to around 67; or else there will be huge tax increases required to pay for it.
That is the doozy the government has announced today.
This is not a budget that prepares New Zealand for the challenges of the future.
There is not a word in here about preparing New Zealand for the effects of climate change.
The Green party will be disappointed that the sum put aside for home insulation has been slashed from a billion dollars to $244 million.
Then we look over at the infrastructure spend, and we can see that the government is shifting $258 million of spending from rail to roads.
So this is what the Greens have got for their cooperation deal with the National party.
They have actually lost money!
They have lost $14 million!
Then what about the Maori party?
Who do they think is going to be hardest hit by this recession?
The National party is not doing anything for new jobs, and the Maori Party is voting for that!
At least Pita Sharples can wave at the unemployed as he drives by in his new car.
The good news: Inflation is no longer a problem. We have finally got the low inflation economy the National Party always said would deliver us its dream economy. How’s that working out now?
National has produced a lacklustre budget that Bill Birch would have been proud of.
In troubled times, when the economy is rocking on the waves of global economic storms, the government has responded weakly.
Not with a vision for the future.
Not with bold steps that will lead New Zealand on a developmental path.
But with a weak, uncertain, sitting on their hands response.
Governments around the world are investing in the future.
This one has slashed the future.
This one is the Broken Promise budget.
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
It is cutting nearly as much out of science and research in the primary sector as it is investing in infrastructure.
Government spending on science and research, on a like for like basis, falls from around a billion government dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in National’s replacement.
With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit.
This is huge cut in science and research.
It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy.
It is a disaster for the future of our most important economic sector.
Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of this recession stronger.
New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research.
That is what David Carter repeatedly promised.
He promised it as recently as this year.
Farmers and our agri businesses will be looking it up.
And they will find not increases, but cuts.
It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.
I want to turn to some other features of this disappointing budget.
I want to draw the House’s attention to the table on Page 55 of the fiscal strategy report.
In there the government points to its expected increases in nominal average wages over the next four years.
If you deduct those from the CPI – the cost of living index - there will be no increases in real wages for four years.
No increase in real wages for four years!
This is the curious branch of economics that says the way to make New Zealand better off is to make everyone worse off.
Not since the eighties have we had an economy that didn’t increase real wages for four consecutive years.
It’s hardly conducive to keeping working New Zealanders here.
If they were leaving before, wait until John Key’s policies result in no increase in real wages for four years.
I have to give the National party credit for one thing.
There was a time in the past when National would have said the way to fix that would be to spend up on tax cuts.
At least Bill English and John key have now accepted that tax cuts do not stimulate the economy.
But that is not what they said when they wanted to get elected.
They promised New Zealanders tax cuts.
They now say they can’t afford them. Fair enough. But that’s not what they said when they wanted a vote.
Back then they said their promises took into account the worsening economic climate.
Back then they said
“National has structured its economic package to take account of the changing international climate.”
They weren’t telling the truth when they made the promises that got them elected.
They said: “Our tax cut programme will not require any additional borrowing”.
They weren’t telling the truth when they made the promises that got them elected.
The only way that promise could have been true is if his tax policy wouldn’t require borrowing because it was never going to go ahead anyway - and John Key knew that even before the election
Last year John Key said his tax policy was "appropriate for the current conditions" and would require "no additional borrowing.”
There is no excuse for this.
John Key was here in the eighties and he was here in the nineties when governments got elected and immediately tossed out the promises they got elected on.
I was in here in 1991.
I remember the Bolger government got away with the 1991 budget to begin with.
People gave them the benefit of the doubt that the economy had been wrecked by Roger Douglas and needed hard measures.
But over time it was a disaster.
This one will be too.
Those tax cuts needed to be cancelled.
But they should never have been promised in the first place.
John Key owes New Zealand an apology for getting himself elected on a promise that could never have been kept.
Did he know before the election that the international economic situation was deteriorating, or did he only find out when the Treasury told him?
Neither possible answer reflects well on his fitness to lead a country through a crisis.
I want to turn in the time left to the cuts to the Super Fund.
This is very sneaky politics.
Cutting the Super Fund now reduces the ability of any government in the future to provide for super at anything like existing rates or retirement age.
So what Bill English is doing is pushing out by ten years the hard decisions about the huge tax increases or cuts to super that will be needed to make super affordable.
He has calculated he won’t be finance minister in ten years.
He is right about that!
After this budget he won’t be finance minister in three years.
But he has delivered an enormous burden to future taxpayers.
The affordability of superannuation in the future must decline because we are no longer putting aside something now to pay for some of it in the future.
It was going to pay for around fifteen percent of the future cost.
Now it will pay for less than seven per cent.
That means the age of eligibility for superannuation will be increased to around 67; or else there will be huge tax increases required to pay for it.
That is the doozy the government has announced today.
This is not a budget that prepares New Zealand for the challenges of the future.
There is not a word in here about preparing New Zealand for the effects of climate change.
The Green party will be disappointed that the sum put aside for home insulation has been slashed from a billion dollars to $244 million.
Then we look over at the infrastructure spend, and we can see that the government is shifting $258 million of spending from rail to roads.
So this is what the Greens have got for their cooperation deal with the National party.
They have actually lost money!
They have lost $14 million!
Then what about the Maori party?
Who do they think is going to be hardest hit by this recession?
The National party is not doing anything for new jobs, and the Maori Party is voting for that!
At least Pita Sharples can wave at the unemployed as he drives by in his new car.
Huge cuts in primary sector science
28/05/09 12:29 Filed in: News Releases
Nearly as much is being cut out of science and research in the primary sector as the government is investing in infrastructure, Opposition agriculture spokesperson Jim Anderton says.
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
Like for like government spending over ten years falls from around a billion dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in the government’s replacement.
“With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit. Overall, the government is cutting innovation spending by more than the value of the personal tax cuts.
“This is huge cut in science and research. It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy,” Jim Anderton says.
“Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of recession stronger. New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
“The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research. It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.”
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
Like for like government spending over ten years falls from around a billion dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in the government’s replacement.
“With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit. Overall, the government is cutting innovation spending by more than the value of the personal tax cuts.
“This is huge cut in science and research. It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy,” Jim Anderton says.
“Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of recession stronger. New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
“The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research. It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.”
May Edition of Jim's eNews
29/05/09 12:15 Filed in: Newsletters
Budget Day 09 - Huge cuts in primary sector science
28.05.09
Nearly as much is being cut out of science and research in the primary sector as the government is investing in infrastructure.
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion provided for in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
Like for like government spending over ten years falls from around a billion dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in the government’s replacement. “With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit. Overall, the government is cutting innovation spending by more than the value of the personal tax cuts.
This is huge cut in science and research. It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy.
Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of recession stronger. New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research. It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.
Winter rebate from electricity companies would be appreciated
22.05.09
The knowledge that many elderly New Zealanders huddle under blankets rather than turn on unaffordable heating should be a wake-up call to the power companies to return a winter rebate to their consumers this winter.
For many New Zealanders, this wintry weather brings on a bitter struggle with the cold and the dilemma of whether they can turn on a heater or not. Low income households, the elderly and students fear their electricity bills and well they might. I remember when the electricity bills came every two months – now the monthly bill is the same – or more – than the bi-monthly one was.
The Commerce Commission’s investigation into the wholesale and retail electricity markets showed that the electricity companies have not breached Part 2 of the Commerce Act but their extra $4.3 billion in earnings from 2001 to mid-2007 reveals they are charging with a take no prisoners mentality. The electricity companies’ profits are at the expense of New Zealand’s most economically vulnerable.
Since 2002, I have pushed for a return to consumers of some of the big profit increases from the state-owned power companies to help them with winter power bills. Low income households could be given $200 toward winter heating costs and power companies would still contribute as much to the government as they did last year. $200 would mean some households had a month of relief from winter heating costs. For superannuitants, beneficiaries and people who have lost their jobs in the downturn, it would make a huge difference.
The Commerce Commission’s ruling on the power companies should not be seen as a sign off for a return to business as usual. I am sure that New Zealanders would be hugely relieved to see the companies acting in the interests’ of their consumers with a winter rebate during this winter.
Comment on economics and the recession Response to Daniel Silva’s article in the Country-wide magazine
21.05.09
So Daniel Silva thinks that the current international recession isn’t going to affect New Zealand much. Well that’s all right then? Actually – no.
He’s quite wrong to think so for two significant reasons quite aside from the fact that any nation which earns its living as an international commodities trader is going to be affected by what happens to purchasing power in our major markets.See website for full response
Aucklanders should have elected, not appointed leaders
19.05.09
Letting Auckland vote would be a better way to make appointees to the Auckland super city transitional agency than a secret process in a government where decision-making is melting down.
Why is the government even appointing a board? The way we find people to run local government in New Zealand is we have democratic elections.
A government that listened to New Zealanders would not have a problem making a choice of leadership. The people do the appointing for it. In a democratic election, you are much more likely to get leadership that looks like Auckland. National seems interested only in leadership that looks like the National or ACT Party.
I am very concerned that the quality of decision-making in the government is falling apart as the pressure of actually governing comes on. The National government is making poor decisions or refusing to make them at all. It created a sense of urgency for itself over Auckland’s super city, and now it can’t even meet its own urgent timetable.
Needle Exchange Programme proven it worth
19.05.09
On the 21st Anniversary of the Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) - and the 4th year of the free one-for-one exchange of needles, I again would support and expand a needle exchange programme that provides free needles for intravenous drug users.
The Progressive Party successfully bid in 2004 for $4 million over four years to fund free-to-users, one-for-one exchange of used needles because we wanted to minimise the harm caused by drugs”.
Back in 2002, I was appointed as the Associate Minister of Health and the minister responsible for drug policy. I received an independent review of the needle and syringe exchange programme. It reported that the programme saves lives. It said the programme saved - back then, seven years ago - $35 million in treatment costs since it had been established.
The report said plainly that the needle exchange programme reduces the harm caused by drug use. It told me the programme had helped to prevent twenty deaths from AIDS and more than two thousand cases of Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.
When you get a report like that in government, you sit up and take notice.
It makes a pleasant change from all the doom and gloom about things that don’t work. Here was clear evidence of a programme that worked.
There were people who sneered at that as liberal political correctness. I can tell you from personal experience there aren’t many votes in being wise or liberal about this stuff. But it was then, and is now, the right thing to do anyway.
The results have been very worthwhile. Obviously, I wish we didn’t need this programme. I wish we didn’t have drug use causing the harm it does, wrecking the lives of many people, and wrecking many communities.
But it does happen. It will keep happening. And if we care about vulnerable victims then our responsibility is to reduce the harm to them as much as we can. The needle exchange programme does just that and I endorse it for that reason.
Anderton brands Auckland bill as the “Removal of Democracy” bill
18.05.09
The Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill which will usher in Auckland’s “supercity” should be renamed the Removal of Democracy Bill.
The Local Government Act would have given Aucklanders a say in one of the most significant changes in local government in their region that they will see in their lifetime, but they are not going to have a chance to have that say.
In essence it is a great leap backwards to the days when 21 out of twenty two councillors lived east of Queen Street. It was the reason why a ward system had to be introduced so that all Aucklanders could actually be represented on their own Council. The conservative right-wingers have always resented that change and this proposal returns Auckland to the past they have always hankered after.
In real life terms it means, for example, the end of free swimming pools for the kids of South Auckland and any other future say for most Aucklanders in the way they want their local communities to deliver for them. Does anyone believe that those pools will continue to be free under the government’s proposal? I can already hear the self appointed Mayor of the super city, John Banks, making speeches about why the ratepayers of Auckland City shouldn’t be subsidising the swimming pools of south Auckland.
I support a strong regional government for Auckland. There used to be one – the Auckland Regional Authority (ARA) and I know about it because I was elected to it in 1977. We bought all the major regional parks and replaced the entire ancient bus fleet with new Mercedes Benz vehicles.
In 1989, the Labour government replaced the ARA with the Auckland Regional Council (ARC). In 1992, the then National government wanted to sell the Ports of Auckland and the water services, so they diverted ownership of these and other profitable assets into the newly established Auckland Regional Services Trust (ARST) with the plan to sell. What a shambles that would have been if it had been allowed to happen. It took all of the strength of the political group I led at the time to put a stop to that. Auckland has reaped the benefit ever since,” Jim Anderton said.
Now they’re having another go. This is a privatisers’ dream to sell the community assets of Auckland, and is entirely in line with Rodney Hide and the ACT party’s ideologies. Does anyone believe that this is in the best interests of Aucklanders?
You can understand in those circumstances why the National ACT government doesn’t want people to have a say as to whether or not they want this outrageous piece of community destruction to go ahead.
Tribute to Senior-Constable Len Snee
12.05.09
I join with other party leaders in expressing my deepest condolences to the family of Len Snee. I too wish a speedy and full recovery to the injured as they lie in their hospitals.
I send my best wishes to their families who must be desperately worried as they pray and wait at the bedsides of the fallen.
Maybe the most sombre thing we do in Parliament and government is send men and women into danger on our behalf. We send them out knowing that sometimes, on our darkest days, they won’t come back alive. When we send them out, we send them to defend New Zealanders. They are there for us.
They go out as our bravest, and when they fall, some of us all falls with them.
Every police officer knows that they go about their duty on every apparently normal day, with danger and unpredictability lurking. They take on that danger on our behalf. We can never repay sufficiently our debt to them, and we can not begin to repay the debt we owe to those who give their lives for us.
Most of us have learned a lot about Len Snee in the last few days. We learned about his professionalism as an officer. We learned about his popularity in his community. So I pay tribute to him personally and I hope his family, as they grieve, can find some small condolence in the respect and admiration his country is expressing.
I hope New Zealanders will show respect by declining to seek political mileage from this death while this wound is still so raw.
It is very easy to exploit the strong emotions we all feel over a tragedy like this. It is easy, but it’s wrong.
I want to congratulate the prime minister, and say I agree with his reaction when he said he was not going to be stampeded into a call for arming the police in their day to day operations. That was the right response. There will be lessons to be learned from this tragedy, and we will all have to reflect carefully on them. But the time for making political points isn’t here yet.
I am sure the family of the murdered officer are not yet ready to have him used for point-scoring about guns, nor for political mileage about drugs nor crime, nor about policing, nor mental health, nor any of the other issues that will inevitably give us pause.
This is a time to give thanks to the men and women whom we ask to protect us, to share the grief of Len Snee’s family and friends, and to express our strength as a community that comes together and makes our bonds stronger when we are confronted with tragedy.
Launch of the Finsec Banking petition
05.05.09
I would like to express my support for the Finsec petition, and for the retention of New Zealand jobs. Banks in New Zealand have been making enormous profits by mistreating customers and exploiting staff.
In the current global financial situation - the overseas owned banks in New Zealand are some of the most profitable in the world.
But they are still firing staff.
It’s time for them to give something back. It’ time for them to support New Zealand as good corporate citizens.
The taxpayer is giving the banks a crucial government guarantee. The government is right to do so. The banks need the guarantee to keep functioning. In a crisis, New Zealanders should be prepared to help each other out. And we should be prepared to use the power of government to make our economy stronger.
But there is a quid pro quo. It is perfectly reasonable to ask that in exchange for getting support from New Zealanders, the banks should, in return, support New Zealand in general and their own staff in particular.
MPs should not be able to fight by-elections
05.05.09
It’s a farce that sitting MPs are standing for election to parliament. I am drafting a members’ bill to stop MPs from standing for parliament in by-elections. In Mt Albert, there are three MPs standing for parliament. They are already MPs. If they want to represent the electorate, they already can. Any list MP can open an electorate office in Mt Albert and be a good representative.
What those MPs are really doing is using their parliamentary salaries and resources to bring in someone on a party list who has nothing to do with Mt Albert. For example, if the National candidate were to win she would be an MP just as she is now. But she would bring in a new MP who virtually no one has heard of, and who might never have visited Mt Albert in his or her life.
MPs who contest the seat but lose bring MMP into disrepute. Since there are three MPs contesting the seat, at least two of them have to lose and maybe all three will lose. If they are going to test their mandate, they should be prepared to live with the result.
In a general election, no MP has insurance. They have to get enough votes in their electorate or for their party, or they are out. It’s a democratic farce to have different rules in a by-election.
A simple bill that stopped a sitting MP standing in a by-election would force MPs to make a meaningful choice - if they really want to contest a seat, they should resign from parliament and contest it on the same basis as anyone else.
MPs shouldn’t fight a parliamentary by-election while they’re drawing a full parliamentary salary.
28.05.09
Nearly as much is being cut out of science and research in the primary sector as the government is investing in infrastructure.
The total value of primary sector science investment falls from $2 billion provided for in NZ Fast Forward under the last government to as little as $1.2 billion now.
Like for like government spending over ten years falls from around a billion dollars in the NZ Fast Forward Fund, to $610 million in the government’s replacement. “With matching private sector funding, the total investment in primary sector research and development falls by $800 million, or about 0.4 per cent of GDP.
In addition, the government has not replaced a cent of the cancelled research and development tax credit. Overall, the government is cutting innovation spending by more than the value of the personal tax cuts.
This is huge cut in science and research. It is a disaster for the future of New Zealand’s economy.
Other developed countries are preparing themselves to come out of recession stronger. New Zealand is preparing by switching from science and research to poltergeists and UFOs.
The government promised the primary sector it would spend more on science and research. It has broken that promise as surely as if it has broken its promise on personal taxes.
Winter rebate from electricity companies would be appreciated
22.05.09
The knowledge that many elderly New Zealanders huddle under blankets rather than turn on unaffordable heating should be a wake-up call to the power companies to return a winter rebate to their consumers this winter.
For many New Zealanders, this wintry weather brings on a bitter struggle with the cold and the dilemma of whether they can turn on a heater or not. Low income households, the elderly and students fear their electricity bills and well they might. I remember when the electricity bills came every two months – now the monthly bill is the same – or more – than the bi-monthly one was.
The Commerce Commission’s investigation into the wholesale and retail electricity markets showed that the electricity companies have not breached Part 2 of the Commerce Act but their extra $4.3 billion in earnings from 2001 to mid-2007 reveals they are charging with a take no prisoners mentality. The electricity companies’ profits are at the expense of New Zealand’s most economically vulnerable.
Since 2002, I have pushed for a return to consumers of some of the big profit increases from the state-owned power companies to help them with winter power bills. Low income households could be given $200 toward winter heating costs and power companies would still contribute as much to the government as they did last year. $200 would mean some households had a month of relief from winter heating costs. For superannuitants, beneficiaries and people who have lost their jobs in the downturn, it would make a huge difference.
The Commerce Commission’s ruling on the power companies should not be seen as a sign off for a return to business as usual. I am sure that New Zealanders would be hugely relieved to see the companies acting in the interests’ of their consumers with a winter rebate during this winter.
Comment on economics and the recession Response to Daniel Silva’s article in the Country-wide magazine
21.05.09
So Daniel Silva thinks that the current international recession isn’t going to affect New Zealand much. Well that’s all right then? Actually – no.
He’s quite wrong to think so for two significant reasons quite aside from the fact that any nation which earns its living as an international commodities trader is going to be affected by what happens to purchasing power in our major markets.See website for full response
Aucklanders should have elected, not appointed leaders
19.05.09
Letting Auckland vote would be a better way to make appointees to the Auckland super city transitional agency than a secret process in a government where decision-making is melting down.
Why is the government even appointing a board? The way we find people to run local government in New Zealand is we have democratic elections.
A government that listened to New Zealanders would not have a problem making a choice of leadership. The people do the appointing for it. In a democratic election, you are much more likely to get leadership that looks like Auckland. National seems interested only in leadership that looks like the National or ACT Party.
I am very concerned that the quality of decision-making in the government is falling apart as the pressure of actually governing comes on. The National government is making poor decisions or refusing to make them at all. It created a sense of urgency for itself over Auckland’s super city, and now it can’t even meet its own urgent timetable.
Needle Exchange Programme proven it worth
19.05.09
On the 21st Anniversary of the Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) - and the 4th year of the free one-for-one exchange of needles, I again would support and expand a needle exchange programme that provides free needles for intravenous drug users.
The Progressive Party successfully bid in 2004 for $4 million over four years to fund free-to-users, one-for-one exchange of used needles because we wanted to minimise the harm caused by drugs”.
Back in 2002, I was appointed as the Associate Minister of Health and the minister responsible for drug policy. I received an independent review of the needle and syringe exchange programme. It reported that the programme saves lives. It said the programme saved - back then, seven years ago - $35 million in treatment costs since it had been established.
The report said plainly that the needle exchange programme reduces the harm caused by drug use. It told me the programme had helped to prevent twenty deaths from AIDS and more than two thousand cases of Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.
When you get a report like that in government, you sit up and take notice.
It makes a pleasant change from all the doom and gloom about things that don’t work. Here was clear evidence of a programme that worked.
There were people who sneered at that as liberal political correctness. I can tell you from personal experience there aren’t many votes in being wise or liberal about this stuff. But it was then, and is now, the right thing to do anyway.
The results have been very worthwhile. Obviously, I wish we didn’t need this programme. I wish we didn’t have drug use causing the harm it does, wrecking the lives of many people, and wrecking many communities.
But it does happen. It will keep happening. And if we care about vulnerable victims then our responsibility is to reduce the harm to them as much as we can. The needle exchange programme does just that and I endorse it for that reason.
Anderton brands Auckland bill as the “Removal of Democracy” bill
18.05.09
The Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill which will usher in Auckland’s “supercity” should be renamed the Removal of Democracy Bill.
The Local Government Act would have given Aucklanders a say in one of the most significant changes in local government in their region that they will see in their lifetime, but they are not going to have a chance to have that say.
In essence it is a great leap backwards to the days when 21 out of twenty two councillors lived east of Queen Street. It was the reason why a ward system had to be introduced so that all Aucklanders could actually be represented on their own Council. The conservative right-wingers have always resented that change and this proposal returns Auckland to the past they have always hankered after.
In real life terms it means, for example, the end of free swimming pools for the kids of South Auckland and any other future say for most Aucklanders in the way they want their local communities to deliver for them. Does anyone believe that those pools will continue to be free under the government’s proposal? I can already hear the self appointed Mayor of the super city, John Banks, making speeches about why the ratepayers of Auckland City shouldn’t be subsidising the swimming pools of south Auckland.
I support a strong regional government for Auckland. There used to be one – the Auckland Regional Authority (ARA) and I know about it because I was elected to it in 1977. We bought all the major regional parks and replaced the entire ancient bus fleet with new Mercedes Benz vehicles.
In 1989, the Labour government replaced the ARA with the Auckland Regional Council (ARC). In 1992, the then National government wanted to sell the Ports of Auckland and the water services, so they diverted ownership of these and other profitable assets into the newly established Auckland Regional Services Trust (ARST) with the plan to sell. What a shambles that would have been if it had been allowed to happen. It took all of the strength of the political group I led at the time to put a stop to that. Auckland has reaped the benefit ever since,” Jim Anderton said.
Now they’re having another go. This is a privatisers’ dream to sell the community assets of Auckland, and is entirely in line with Rodney Hide and the ACT party’s ideologies. Does anyone believe that this is in the best interests of Aucklanders?
You can understand in those circumstances why the National ACT government doesn’t want people to have a say as to whether or not they want this outrageous piece of community destruction to go ahead.
Tribute to Senior-Constable Len Snee
12.05.09
I join with other party leaders in expressing my deepest condolences to the family of Len Snee. I too wish a speedy and full recovery to the injured as they lie in their hospitals.
I send my best wishes to their families who must be desperately worried as they pray and wait at the bedsides of the fallen.
Maybe the most sombre thing we do in Parliament and government is send men and women into danger on our behalf. We send them out knowing that sometimes, on our darkest days, they won’t come back alive. When we send them out, we send them to defend New Zealanders. They are there for us.
They go out as our bravest, and when they fall, some of us all falls with them.
Every police officer knows that they go about their duty on every apparently normal day, with danger and unpredictability lurking. They take on that danger on our behalf. We can never repay sufficiently our debt to them, and we can not begin to repay the debt we owe to those who give their lives for us.
Most of us have learned a lot about Len Snee in the last few days. We learned about his professionalism as an officer. We learned about his popularity in his community. So I pay tribute to him personally and I hope his family, as they grieve, can find some small condolence in the respect and admiration his country is expressing.
I hope New Zealanders will show respect by declining to seek political mileage from this death while this wound is still so raw.
It is very easy to exploit the strong emotions we all feel over a tragedy like this. It is easy, but it’s wrong.
I want to congratulate the prime minister, and say I agree with his reaction when he said he was not going to be stampeded into a call for arming the police in their day to day operations. That was the right response. There will be lessons to be learned from this tragedy, and we will all have to reflect carefully on them. But the time for making political points isn’t here yet.
I am sure the family of the murdered officer are not yet ready to have him used for point-scoring about guns, nor for political mileage about drugs nor crime, nor about policing, nor mental health, nor any of the other issues that will inevitably give us pause.
This is a time to give thanks to the men and women whom we ask to protect us, to share the grief of Len Snee’s family and friends, and to express our strength as a community that comes together and makes our bonds stronger when we are confronted with tragedy.
Launch of the Finsec Banking petition
05.05.09
I would like to express my support for the Finsec petition, and for the retention of New Zealand jobs. Banks in New Zealand have been making enormous profits by mistreating customers and exploiting staff.
In the current global financial situation - the overseas owned banks in New Zealand are some of the most profitable in the world.
But they are still firing staff.
It’s time for them to give something back. It’ time for them to support New Zealand as good corporate citizens.
The taxpayer is giving the banks a crucial government guarantee. The government is right to do so. The banks need the guarantee to keep functioning. In a crisis, New Zealanders should be prepared to help each other out. And we should be prepared to use the power of government to make our economy stronger.
But there is a quid pro quo. It is perfectly reasonable to ask that in exchange for getting support from New Zealanders, the banks should, in return, support New Zealand in general and their own staff in particular.
MPs should not be able to fight by-elections
05.05.09
It’s a farce that sitting MPs are standing for election to parliament. I am drafting a members’ bill to stop MPs from standing for parliament in by-elections. In Mt Albert, there are three MPs standing for parliament. They are already MPs. If they want to represent the electorate, they already can. Any list MP can open an electorate office in Mt Albert and be a good representative.
What those MPs are really doing is using their parliamentary salaries and resources to bring in someone on a party list who has nothing to do with Mt Albert. For example, if the National candidate were to win she would be an MP just as she is now. But she would bring in a new MP who virtually no one has heard of, and who might never have visited Mt Albert in his or her life.
MPs who contest the seat but lose bring MMP into disrepute. Since there are three MPs contesting the seat, at least two of them have to lose and maybe all three will lose. If they are going to test their mandate, they should be prepared to live with the result.
In a general election, no MP has insurance. They have to get enough votes in their electorate or for their party, or they are out. It’s a democratic farce to have different rules in a by-election.
A simple bill that stopped a sitting MP standing in a by-election would force MPs to make a meaningful choice - if they really want to contest a seat, they should resign from parliament and contest it on the same basis as anyone else.
MPs shouldn’t fight a parliamentary by-election while they’re drawing a full parliamentary salary.