Christchurch
Enough is enough - liquor outlet community protest
20/08/11 13:06 Filed in: Speeches
Jim Anderton’s speech at liquor outlet community protest
Another liquor store is the last thing we need. Public drinking is a serious problem for this area. It’s got worse since the earthquakes closed the inner city. Just two weeks ago, four students were arrested, cars were vandalised and police were pelted with bottles in Riccarton.
How much of this behaviour do we have to take before we say it’s too much? It’s too hard for communities to oppose liquor outlets when we feel there are already too many in our neighbourhoods.
More places selling alcohol, a lower drinking age, and longer opening hours - it all adds up. It adds up to more alcohol abuse. It adds up to more harm to communities.
Communities are in a good position to judge for themselves whether there are too many places in an area to buy liquor.
Residents are good at gauging for themselves whether there are enough places.
But the law doesn’t give local communities enough say. The result is that it is too hard for a community to respond to increasing alcohol abuse.
You don't have to be a wowser to say the rules are too heavily weighted in favour of alcohol. But ‘wowser’ and ‘zealot’ and the labels that the alcohol industry puts on anyone who expresses concern about the harm caused by alcohol - Sensible people like Doug Selman, from the National Addiction Centre at the University of Otago, and Ross Bell, from the New Zealand Drug Foundation.
Liquor lobbyists like the Hospitality Association say drinkers should take personal responsibility for their own actions. That sounds reasonable. But it is the opposite, and it’s just as cynical as the arguments the tobacco industry used to use.
Those who are addicted to alcohol or affected by it are generally the least well equipped to deal with it responsibly. The hospitality industry knows this only too well.
I often ask myself what some of those same people would say if their own children or family members became addicted to an illegal drug such as methamphetamine.
Would they blame the children alone, or would they put some responsibility on the dealers.
The same goes for the alcohol industry.
We have a serious alcohol problem in New Zealand.
Sixty per cent of criminal offences are committed when the offender is under the influence of alcohol. There are 1350 violent physical assaults which take place in New Zealand homes each week fuelled by alcohol abuse.
If we want less crime and safer streets, we need to make alcohol less available.
This community is taking action. Everyone here today is taking personal responsible for making this community safer. We deserve to be listened to. We are entitled to say enough is enough.
We don’t need more drinking nor more places to drink.
What we need are safer streets and more respect for the wishes of this community to control the number of liquor outlets in our neighbourhood.
Another liquor store is the last thing we need. Public drinking is a serious problem for this area. It’s got worse since the earthquakes closed the inner city. Just two weeks ago, four students were arrested, cars were vandalised and police were pelted with bottles in Riccarton.
How much of this behaviour do we have to take before we say it’s too much? It’s too hard for communities to oppose liquor outlets when we feel there are already too many in our neighbourhoods.
More places selling alcohol, a lower drinking age, and longer opening hours - it all adds up. It adds up to more alcohol abuse. It adds up to more harm to communities.
Communities are in a good position to judge for themselves whether there are too many places in an area to buy liquor.
Residents are good at gauging for themselves whether there are enough places.
But the law doesn’t give local communities enough say. The result is that it is too hard for a community to respond to increasing alcohol abuse.
You don't have to be a wowser to say the rules are too heavily weighted in favour of alcohol. But ‘wowser’ and ‘zealot’ and the labels that the alcohol industry puts on anyone who expresses concern about the harm caused by alcohol - Sensible people like Doug Selman, from the National Addiction Centre at the University of Otago, and Ross Bell, from the New Zealand Drug Foundation.
Liquor lobbyists like the Hospitality Association say drinkers should take personal responsibility for their own actions. That sounds reasonable. But it is the opposite, and it’s just as cynical as the arguments the tobacco industry used to use.
Those who are addicted to alcohol or affected by it are generally the least well equipped to deal with it responsibly. The hospitality industry knows this only too well.
I often ask myself what some of those same people would say if their own children or family members became addicted to an illegal drug such as methamphetamine.
Would they blame the children alone, or would they put some responsibility on the dealers.
The same goes for the alcohol industry.
We have a serious alcohol problem in New Zealand.
Sixty per cent of criminal offences are committed when the offender is under the influence of alcohol. There are 1350 violent physical assaults which take place in New Zealand homes each week fuelled by alcohol abuse.
If we want less crime and safer streets, we need to make alcohol less available.
This community is taking action. Everyone here today is taking personal responsible for making this community safer. We deserve to be listened to. We are entitled to say enough is enough.
We don’t need more drinking nor more places to drink.
What we need are safer streets and more respect for the wishes of this community to control the number of liquor outlets in our neighbourhood.
Jim's E-News, June 2011
27/06/11 11:10 Filed in: Newsletters
Dental policy, free care to all
Free dental care for all may sound like a dream, but it is something I strongly believe should be introduced as a benefit for the entire population. This week, I launched a dental policy which advocates free dental care to be made available to all people, starting with vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and those aged over 65 years, then moving to those aged between 18 and 50 and, finally, those between 50 and 65 years of age.
These steps should be supported by education, publicity and, if supported by a parliamentary select committee enquiry, the fluoridation of all drinking water.
There should also be a bonding scheme for dentists and dental hygienists who are prepared to work in rural or provincial areas where dental professionals are in short supply in return for writing off student debt over a 3 to 5 year period of service.
Good oral health should also be reinstated as a priority goal for the public health system, together with the reinstatement of the requirement that school lunch shops and cafeterias provide only healthy food for our children.
The reasoning for my policy is quite simple. More than 44 per cent of our entire population do not currently receive any form of dental care and this is set to get worse. Only 50 per cent of young New Zealanders receive dental treatment because of a lack of available service or cost and dental decay is increasing significantly, often due to poor diet and the effect of such things as sugar-loaded soft drinks. Along with obesity and diabetes, dental decay is destined to reach epidemic proportions unless something is done as a matter of urgency.
Between 2011 and 2030, many of the baby-boom generation are due to retire and because most of them have kept their natural teeth, many will get serious decay from tooth crowns and exposed tooth roots. Clearly this means that many elderly New Zealanders will need expensive dental treatment, in many cases this will be well beyond their ability to pay.
There will, of course, be questions over the cost and affordability of this policy, and I have done considerable work researching this. The total cost of universal dental care could be as high as $1 billion, but this could be funded through a levy on earnings, similar to ACC, along with a reduction in the $17.8 billion tax cuts given to the most affluent New Zealanders by the National-led government, a levy on sugary soft drinks (such as we have on tobacco or alcohol), or a mix of all these possible sources of funds.
It is not that difficult and I hope that this policy will be promoted across the political spectrum and be an issue for debate during this years’ general election campaign.
Full details can be found here.
Christchurch CEO appointment process contaminated
If ever a process looked contaminated, it is that being followed for the recruitment and appointment of a new chief executive of the Christchurch City Council, and it is high time the process was abandoned and started afresh.
To cap what has already been a controversial course of events, the Council has restricted advertising for its chief executive position to seventeen days, and included in the advertisement that the current chief executive ,Tony Marryatt, is applying for a further five years in the job. It sends a clear message to other potential candidates that they need not bother applying.
There are a number of troubling aspects to the current process, none less so than Mayor Bob Parker silencing council members from expressing a view on Marryatt’s performance, by saying that it could expose the Council to legal action, but then publicly proclaiming his own support.
Marryatt, Parker said, was the best chief executive he had ever worked with, before being reported in The Press as threatening to resign if Marryatt was not re-appointed. He then apparently went on to ask each member of council individually, in front of the others, whether they personally supported Marryatt. Attempting to silence, then badger, elected members of Council is not part of a healthy, democratic employment process, for any position, let alone such an important one as this.
Add to this mix, the curious position where prominent business people, led by Chamber of Commerce and Solid Energy bosses, respectively Peter Townsend and Don Elder, published an open letter setting out the qualities they felt were needed in a chief executive to lead our city. According to Townsend and Elder, the sentiments expressed in the letter were a mild version of the discussion within their Chamber. Since then, others have added their voices, with a collection of "very influential businessmen" and public office-holders expressing "a considerable amount of dissatisfaction" with Marryatt's performance
Something is amiss here, and I cannot help but draw the conclusion that this recruitment and appointment process cannot continue. This appointment is not something that has to be rushed, and it is imperative that Christchurch has a chief executive who can unite the city and inspire confidence in tackling the very important tasks which lie ahead.
Maori suicide prevention
This week I was fortunate enough to speak to the Kia Piki te Ora national hui, although perhaps the word fortunate is not quite the right as the discussion was on suicide prevention. Alarmingly, around 500 New Zealanders each year commit suicide, that’s ten a week and, of that number, suicide among Maori is the highest of any demographic group.
I know that researchers have identified a high risk factor for Maori in attempted suicide among those who are not connected to their Maori heritage and Maoritanga. Other major factors include poor general health, the use of drugs, including alcohol, and, especially cannabis, and the number of suicides is high among those who have been the victims of abuse.
While suicide figures still remain too high, it is not to say that nothing has been done to deal with the issue. Suicide rates have dropped by around 25 per cent since a peak in the nineties and, while I was the Minister responsible for suicide prevention policies, the then Labour-Progressive government funded research into an all-ages suicide prevention as part of a suicide strategy.
While I was Minister, we ran the hugely successful John Kirwan advertisements that encouraged people who were depressed to seek help. We also launched a website, thelowdown.co.nz, where kids could go and find out about how to get help, and that was also effective.
When we talk about Maori suicide, we need to talk about adapting tools that work for individuals, and not thinking that one solution fits everyone. And we need to be committed enough and tough enough to implement our strategies, because not all of them will be popular.
Every single suicide is a tragedy, and I understand the distress and hurt of those who lose their loved ones. A caring country needs to respond when it sees a problem such as this. We need to make a difference if we want to create a society where New Zealanders feel valued and nurtured, where we care for each other and where we value lives.
My full speech to the Kia Piki Te Ora national hui can be found here.
Privatising ACC will lead to higher costs
Those who believe the rhetoric that privatising workplace accident insurance and open up ACC to competition will cut costs and provide a better, more efficient system need only look to Australia to see the opposite is the case.
An independent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Sydney in 2008 showed that ACC costs in New Zealand, at around 0.8 per cent of wages, are substantially lower than the Australian average of 2 per cent of wages. ACC costs for farmers are much lower in New Zealand than in Australia.
It is inevitable that insurance premiums will rise for businesses and farmers when ACC workplace coverage is privatised, but worse than that, taxpayers could end up on the hook for another AMI-style bailout
There will be little to stop those same Australian insurance companies coming over here and underfunding their liabilities, which is what happened in 1998, when HIH went under with billions of dollars of liabilities that had to be picked up by Australian taxpayers.
In New Zealand, taxpayers are today on the hook for up to a billion dollars because AMI didn’t carry enough reinsurance and regulators were never warned of a problem. Why would workplace insurance be any different?
My press release can be found here.
Live animal exports banned from Australia
It isn’t often that Australians admit to being behind New Zealand, but earlier this month I was interviewed by ABC, the Australian national broadcasting corporation, about the banning of live animal exports. The Australian Government recently banned live cattle exports to Indonesia after revelations of cruelty to those Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.
In this case it has taken the Australians some time to catch up with New Zealand’s lead and, in particular, the ABC was interested in the consequences to New Zealand’s economy of banning live animal exports for slaughter.
What happened in New Zealand is that most live animal exporting stopped in 2003, but it was finally brought to a complete end in 2007, after I intervened over the planned export of live cattle to Korea.
I was able to tell the ABC reporter that, although many farmers opposed the live export ban in 2003, by 2007 most of the agricultural industry in New Zealand supported the ban for a number of obvious reasons. These ranged from concerns about animal welfare to the potential reputational and economic backlash as consumers in other countries stopped buying New Zealand meat they believed was being transported and killed through inhumane processes.
But aside from the issues of animal welfare, I was concerned that sending live animals overseas represented the lowest form of commodity export. When asked by the interviewer whether there had been an economic backlash to the banning of live animals for slaughter, I looked to Indonesia as an example. New Zealand currently exports high quality, processed meat cuts to Indonesia, so it would make no sense at all for us to send them live animals. Shifting the processing from New Zealand to Indonesia would simply export our jobs and reduce the benefit to the New Zealand economy. There is nothing to be gained and plenty to lose by sending live animals overseas in this manner.
The full interview can be heard at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2011/3245820.htm
Family violence must be stopped
If I was to look at one alarming crime statistic, it would be that half of the homicides in New Zealand each year are the result of family violence. And it I was to look at another, 70,000 physical, including sexual, assaults take place every year. That is 1350 recorded assaults each week, or 172 each day, and, whatever way you look at it that is unacceptable.
Police believe they only hear about one in five family violence incidents. And they respond to one somewhere in New Zealand every seven minutes, meaning, literally hardly a minute goes by when there isn’t a family assault.
At a recent hui at Tapu te Ranga marae in Wellington, I told the audience that the only way we are going to make a substantial difference in reducing domestic violence is to front up to the extent of the problem.
The causes of domestic violence are multiple and complex, but there are some plain differences we can make. To start with, if people believe that violence has taken place (or is taking place), then they have a responsibility to act. It is no longer “just a domestic” as it was called when I grew up in New Zealand.
There is one common factor affecting sixty per cent of people who are arrested for violence and other criminal acts; alcohol. Alcohol, unarguably, is the most serious drug in terms of influencing violent and criminal behaviour in NZ and that’s the context in which ten kids a year are killed by a member of their own family.
Ninety per cent of people in prison have drug and alcohol abuse problems, and if we want to reduce the level of crime and particularly violence in New Zealand, the fastest way we can make a difference, and the biggest difference we can make, would be to make alcohol less available.
And that is just as true of family violence as it is for any other crime. The best law changes I can think of to assist tackling these problems would be to put up the price of alcohol, reduce the drink driving limits and raise the drinking age. That would be a good, practical and effective first step.
Free dental care for all may sound like a dream, but it is something I strongly believe should be introduced as a benefit for the entire population. This week, I launched a dental policy which advocates free dental care to be made available to all people, starting with vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and those aged over 65 years, then moving to those aged between 18 and 50 and, finally, those between 50 and 65 years of age.
These steps should be supported by education, publicity and, if supported by a parliamentary select committee enquiry, the fluoridation of all drinking water.
There should also be a bonding scheme for dentists and dental hygienists who are prepared to work in rural or provincial areas where dental professionals are in short supply in return for writing off student debt over a 3 to 5 year period of service.
Good oral health should also be reinstated as a priority goal for the public health system, together with the reinstatement of the requirement that school lunch shops and cafeterias provide only healthy food for our children.
The reasoning for my policy is quite simple. More than 44 per cent of our entire population do not currently receive any form of dental care and this is set to get worse. Only 50 per cent of young New Zealanders receive dental treatment because of a lack of available service or cost and dental decay is increasing significantly, often due to poor diet and the effect of such things as sugar-loaded soft drinks. Along with obesity and diabetes, dental decay is destined to reach epidemic proportions unless something is done as a matter of urgency.
Between 2011 and 2030, many of the baby-boom generation are due to retire and because most of them have kept their natural teeth, many will get serious decay from tooth crowns and exposed tooth roots. Clearly this means that many elderly New Zealanders will need expensive dental treatment, in many cases this will be well beyond their ability to pay.
There will, of course, be questions over the cost and affordability of this policy, and I have done considerable work researching this. The total cost of universal dental care could be as high as $1 billion, but this could be funded through a levy on earnings, similar to ACC, along with a reduction in the $17.8 billion tax cuts given to the most affluent New Zealanders by the National-led government, a levy on sugary soft drinks (such as we have on tobacco or alcohol), or a mix of all these possible sources of funds.
It is not that difficult and I hope that this policy will be promoted across the political spectrum and be an issue for debate during this years’ general election campaign.
Full details can be found here.
Christchurch CEO appointment process contaminated
If ever a process looked contaminated, it is that being followed for the recruitment and appointment of a new chief executive of the Christchurch City Council, and it is high time the process was abandoned and started afresh.
To cap what has already been a controversial course of events, the Council has restricted advertising for its chief executive position to seventeen days, and included in the advertisement that the current chief executive ,Tony Marryatt, is applying for a further five years in the job. It sends a clear message to other potential candidates that they need not bother applying.
There are a number of troubling aspects to the current process, none less so than Mayor Bob Parker silencing council members from expressing a view on Marryatt’s performance, by saying that it could expose the Council to legal action, but then publicly proclaiming his own support.
Marryatt, Parker said, was the best chief executive he had ever worked with, before being reported in The Press as threatening to resign if Marryatt was not re-appointed. He then apparently went on to ask each member of council individually, in front of the others, whether they personally supported Marryatt. Attempting to silence, then badger, elected members of Council is not part of a healthy, democratic employment process, for any position, let alone such an important one as this.
Add to this mix, the curious position where prominent business people, led by Chamber of Commerce and Solid Energy bosses, respectively Peter Townsend and Don Elder, published an open letter setting out the qualities they felt were needed in a chief executive to lead our city. According to Townsend and Elder, the sentiments expressed in the letter were a mild version of the discussion within their Chamber. Since then, others have added their voices, with a collection of "very influential businessmen" and public office-holders expressing "a considerable amount of dissatisfaction" with Marryatt's performance
Something is amiss here, and I cannot help but draw the conclusion that this recruitment and appointment process cannot continue. This appointment is not something that has to be rushed, and it is imperative that Christchurch has a chief executive who can unite the city and inspire confidence in tackling the very important tasks which lie ahead.
Maori suicide prevention
This week I was fortunate enough to speak to the Kia Piki te Ora national hui, although perhaps the word fortunate is not quite the right as the discussion was on suicide prevention. Alarmingly, around 500 New Zealanders each year commit suicide, that’s ten a week and, of that number, suicide among Maori is the highest of any demographic group.
I know that researchers have identified a high risk factor for Maori in attempted suicide among those who are not connected to their Maori heritage and Maoritanga. Other major factors include poor general health, the use of drugs, including alcohol, and, especially cannabis, and the number of suicides is high among those who have been the victims of abuse.
While suicide figures still remain too high, it is not to say that nothing has been done to deal with the issue. Suicide rates have dropped by around 25 per cent since a peak in the nineties and, while I was the Minister responsible for suicide prevention policies, the then Labour-Progressive government funded research into an all-ages suicide prevention as part of a suicide strategy.
While I was Minister, we ran the hugely successful John Kirwan advertisements that encouraged people who were depressed to seek help. We also launched a website, thelowdown.co.nz, where kids could go and find out about how to get help, and that was also effective.
When we talk about Maori suicide, we need to talk about adapting tools that work for individuals, and not thinking that one solution fits everyone. And we need to be committed enough and tough enough to implement our strategies, because not all of them will be popular.
Every single suicide is a tragedy, and I understand the distress and hurt of those who lose their loved ones. A caring country needs to respond when it sees a problem such as this. We need to make a difference if we want to create a society where New Zealanders feel valued and nurtured, where we care for each other and where we value lives.
My full speech to the Kia Piki Te Ora national hui can be found here.
Privatising ACC will lead to higher costs
Those who believe the rhetoric that privatising workplace accident insurance and open up ACC to competition will cut costs and provide a better, more efficient system need only look to Australia to see the opposite is the case.
An independent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Sydney in 2008 showed that ACC costs in New Zealand, at around 0.8 per cent of wages, are substantially lower than the Australian average of 2 per cent of wages. ACC costs for farmers are much lower in New Zealand than in Australia.
It is inevitable that insurance premiums will rise for businesses and farmers when ACC workplace coverage is privatised, but worse than that, taxpayers could end up on the hook for another AMI-style bailout
There will be little to stop those same Australian insurance companies coming over here and underfunding their liabilities, which is what happened in 1998, when HIH went under with billions of dollars of liabilities that had to be picked up by Australian taxpayers.
In New Zealand, taxpayers are today on the hook for up to a billion dollars because AMI didn’t carry enough reinsurance and regulators were never warned of a problem. Why would workplace insurance be any different?
My press release can be found here.
Live animal exports banned from Australia
It isn’t often that Australians admit to being behind New Zealand, but earlier this month I was interviewed by ABC, the Australian national broadcasting corporation, about the banning of live animal exports. The Australian Government recently banned live cattle exports to Indonesia after revelations of cruelty to those Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.
In this case it has taken the Australians some time to catch up with New Zealand’s lead and, in particular, the ABC was interested in the consequences to New Zealand’s economy of banning live animal exports for slaughter.
What happened in New Zealand is that most live animal exporting stopped in 2003, but it was finally brought to a complete end in 2007, after I intervened over the planned export of live cattle to Korea.
I was able to tell the ABC reporter that, although many farmers opposed the live export ban in 2003, by 2007 most of the agricultural industry in New Zealand supported the ban for a number of obvious reasons. These ranged from concerns about animal welfare to the potential reputational and economic backlash as consumers in other countries stopped buying New Zealand meat they believed was being transported and killed through inhumane processes.
But aside from the issues of animal welfare, I was concerned that sending live animals overseas represented the lowest form of commodity export. When asked by the interviewer whether there had been an economic backlash to the banning of live animals for slaughter, I looked to Indonesia as an example. New Zealand currently exports high quality, processed meat cuts to Indonesia, so it would make no sense at all for us to send them live animals. Shifting the processing from New Zealand to Indonesia would simply export our jobs and reduce the benefit to the New Zealand economy. There is nothing to be gained and plenty to lose by sending live animals overseas in this manner.
The full interview can be heard at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2011/3245820.htm
Family violence must be stopped
If I was to look at one alarming crime statistic, it would be that half of the homicides in New Zealand each year are the result of family violence. And it I was to look at another, 70,000 physical, including sexual, assaults take place every year. That is 1350 recorded assaults each week, or 172 each day, and, whatever way you look at it that is unacceptable.
Police believe they only hear about one in five family violence incidents. And they respond to one somewhere in New Zealand every seven minutes, meaning, literally hardly a minute goes by when there isn’t a family assault.
At a recent hui at Tapu te Ranga marae in Wellington, I told the audience that the only way we are going to make a substantial difference in reducing domestic violence is to front up to the extent of the problem.
The causes of domestic violence are multiple and complex, but there are some plain differences we can make. To start with, if people believe that violence has taken place (or is taking place), then they have a responsibility to act. It is no longer “just a domestic” as it was called when I grew up in New Zealand.
There is one common factor affecting sixty per cent of people who are arrested for violence and other criminal acts; alcohol. Alcohol, unarguably, is the most serious drug in terms of influencing violent and criminal behaviour in NZ and that’s the context in which ten kids a year are killed by a member of their own family.
Ninety per cent of people in prison have drug and alcohol abuse problems, and if we want to reduce the level of crime and particularly violence in New Zealand, the fastest way we can make a difference, and the biggest difference we can make, would be to make alcohol less available.
And that is just as true of family violence as it is for any other crime. The best law changes I can think of to assist tackling these problems would be to put up the price of alcohol, reduce the drink driving limits and raise the drinking age. That would be a good, practical and effective first step.
How about special recognition for heroes?
27/06/11 10:24 Filed in: Columns
Column for Older and Bolder
July 2011
One of the genuine bonuses of being a Member of Parliament is that anything can turn up as an issue, a problem or a suggestion. Not everyone would see that as a positive thing but I do, and it certainly makes life interesting and gets me involved in matters which I wouldn’t otherwise encounter.
One that particularly intrigued me recently was a suggestion which has been made to the Prime Minister that there should be some mark of recognition granted to those in the emergency services and beyond who have made a contribution to Christchurch in recovering from the earthquakes. The proposal goes on to point out that there is provision for the issue of medals to recognise such a contribution within the present honours system
I received a copy of the letter sent to John Key with the suggestion, and I must say I endorse this idea. That’s not to say that it should happen immediately; events in Christchurch are still, unfortunately, unfolding, but so are the stories surrounding the actions over and above the call of duty which have characterised these events. We need to find some way of commemorating the contribution which those in the emergency services in particular have made, although not necessarily confined to them alone or even solely to New Zealanders.
There is, of course, provision for that to happen now in respect of particular individuals but that requires a personal recommendation, and my correspondent has rightly pointed out that we have a tradition of modesty in this country which, rightly or wrongly, inhibits us from singling out individuals for recognition when the achievement has been a group or collective one.
There are a number of precedents for this. The two most relevant are the medal issued to those who took part in the troubled transition of East Timor to independence, and the medals issued to the one hundred and sixty-three New Zealanders who engaged in rescue and recovery work in the wake of the South East Asian tsunami in 2005. This latter group included, for example, the forty-seven police officers who assisted in identifying bodies in Thailand, and points the way to how such awards might be administered on a group basis.
At that time and in respect of the latter then Prime Minister Helen Clark said that these medals recognised “the special service of those New Zealanders who undertook often harrowing tasks in dangerous conditions.” The same words could very well be applied to the circumstances of Christchurch.
How about it, John?
July 2011
One of the genuine bonuses of being a Member of Parliament is that anything can turn up as an issue, a problem or a suggestion. Not everyone would see that as a positive thing but I do, and it certainly makes life interesting and gets me involved in matters which I wouldn’t otherwise encounter.
One that particularly intrigued me recently was a suggestion which has been made to the Prime Minister that there should be some mark of recognition granted to those in the emergency services and beyond who have made a contribution to Christchurch in recovering from the earthquakes. The proposal goes on to point out that there is provision for the issue of medals to recognise such a contribution within the present honours system
I received a copy of the letter sent to John Key with the suggestion, and I must say I endorse this idea. That’s not to say that it should happen immediately; events in Christchurch are still, unfortunately, unfolding, but so are the stories surrounding the actions over and above the call of duty which have characterised these events. We need to find some way of commemorating the contribution which those in the emergency services in particular have made, although not necessarily confined to them alone or even solely to New Zealanders.
There is, of course, provision for that to happen now in respect of particular individuals but that requires a personal recommendation, and my correspondent has rightly pointed out that we have a tradition of modesty in this country which, rightly or wrongly, inhibits us from singling out individuals for recognition when the achievement has been a group or collective one.
There are a number of precedents for this. The two most relevant are the medal issued to those who took part in the troubled transition of East Timor to independence, and the medals issued to the one hundred and sixty-three New Zealanders who engaged in rescue and recovery work in the wake of the South East Asian tsunami in 2005. This latter group included, for example, the forty-seven police officers who assisted in identifying bodies in Thailand, and points the way to how such awards might be administered on a group basis.
At that time and in respect of the latter then Prime Minister Helen Clark said that these medals recognised “the special service of those New Zealanders who undertook often harrowing tasks in dangerous conditions.” The same words could very well be applied to the circumstances of Christchurch.
How about it, John?
Jim's E-News, May 2011
20/05/11 16:01 Filed in: Newsletters
National government presides over dying economy
Rarely have I heard a speech of such breath-taking cynicism as Prime Minister John Key’s yesterday in support of the 2011 Budget. As his Government set us on a course to take New Zealand back to the very worst of National’s failed policies of the past, he had the gall to tell Parliament that the previous Labour-Progressive Government, of which I was a cabinet minister for 9 years, was responsible for the poor position this country is in.
Let’s look at the facts. In 2008, the Government had a fiscal surplus of $2.7 billion and its accounts were forecast to stay in surplus, unemployment was the lowest in the OECD and only 17% of children in New Zealand lived with someone reliant on a benefit. The Crown was contributing to the Superannuation Fund and had no net debt at all.
Yesterday the Government announced a deficit of $17 billion. In less than three years, unemployment is back at levels last seen in the nineties and 32 thousand more children live with someone reliant on a benefit. It is no accident.
Let’s look at where the current deficit comes from. The income tax cuts from 1 October last year cost $17.8 billion over four years. The top ten per cent of income earners alone got income tax cuts worth $44 million a week, which means that the government is borrowing two and a half billion dollars a year just for tax cuts for that top ten per cent of income earners.
Let’s now look at what this Budget has done? It has cut ‘Working for Families’, it has cut Kiwisaver and it has cut students loans and it has promised to sell off state-owned assets. But it has also allowed for the rich to keep their tax cuts of $44 million a week.
What we have is a government that is too weak to make the changes New Zealand needs, and there is a predictable outcome to this failure; ordinary people will suffer. When families don’t have adequate income, children end up living in poor housing conditions, they lack nourishment and they are not warm enough. Their health suffers and their opportunities suffer even more.
This National-led government should be ashamed of itself. It has not one single programme to fix the problem it has outlined and if it is voted back in office at this year’s General Election, it will come back and ask again for more because its policies have failed.
This Budget is a return to the failed policies of the nineties. It fails to create jobs, it fails to lift incomes and it fails to create a stronger future for New Zealand. In fact it is unarguably the worst I have seen in all of my years in Parliament.
My Budget Day speech can be found here.
Half of New Zealanders don’t have access to affordable dental care
Nearly half of all New Zealanders did not receive any dental care in the last year, partly, at least, because of the cost. The current economic conditions are making dental care even less affordable for New Zealanders.
Dental health is the ‘poor relation’ of our health system. It goes under the radar screen but the human and health costs are mounting.
I am launching an in-depth policy document to stimulate discussion about ways to fill the dental care hole in the health system, with the release at parliament next month of research about the extent of the problem and options for solving it.
The Government spokesperson said recently in the House that he was satisfied that New Zealanders have adequate access to affordable dental health care. He also said he was satisfied with the affordability of dental care, and only acknowledges ‘some’ can’t afford it. In fact 44% of all New Zealanders aren’t getting dental health care. That is more than ‘some.’
The Government also believes that hospital care is an adequate backstop. But people are queuing at dawn for that care, and they even then can only access emergency services such as pain relief and teeth extractions. The National-led government is minimising a serious problem and accepting Third World solutions.
If there is a single policy initiative that could make a difference to health outcomes for all New Zealanders, it would be access to affordable dental health care. Current economic conditions are putting affordable health care even further beyond the reach of average New Zealanders. We need action.
I’ve been studying the problem, and have developed some practical options for making dental care affordable, starting with sensible, practical steps we can take straight away. I’ll be releasing that document in late June.
With up to half of New Zealanders missing out on the dental health care they need, this is not a problem that can be ignored.
Inside the Red Zone
Almost three months after the 22 February Christchurch earthquake, I and the other Christchurch MPs toured the Red Zone earlier this week. The Red Zone is the inner city central business district which has remained strictly off limits to the general public. It was a stark and solemn reminder of the damage that was done on February 22 and of the tragic loss of life that occurred. The miracle was that not more lives were lost.
The destruction is almost inconceivable and to see from close quarters landmarks such as the Hotel Grand Chancellor leaning so perilously close to its neighbouring buildings was quite sobering. The other thing that struck me was boarded up buildings in deserted streets along with winter leaves piling up on the ground in the shadows of an autumn afternoon. It was reminiscent of the images we have seen of the aftermath of a nuclear winter.
The CTV site is now barren and the only reminder of what occurred there are wreaths of flowers placed on the ground, a poignant tribute to those who died. Elsewhere in the city, there are still piles of rubble waiting to be cleared and buildings with their insides exposed. In one, the whole side of a building had fallen off, leaving an upstairs bedroom open to an almost voyeuristic view of a small set of shelves holding folded clothes, completely undisturbed.
What was clear from our visit is that the process of making the central city safe is going to be a long one, and so too the enormity of the work ahead. With that in mind, I was delighted at the appointment of Roger Sutton to lead the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). The talents Roger has demonstrated in leading the power company Orion have not been replicated in any corporate infrastructure company I am aware of anywhere else in New Zealand. He brings a mix of skills that should successfully manage that difficult terrain between political and public pressures, the requirement to exercise good judgement and the need to show strong and inclusive leadership. I am looking forward to working with Roger to rebuild our city.
Those wishing to have a look at the inner city can do so by visiting Terralink’s earthquake street camera.
New electorate office
As a result of earthquake damage, my staff and I have had to relocate my Wigram electorate office, and we are now sharing the premises of the Tulloch Group, 2 Baigent Way. This is on the corner of Lunns Road, just off the southern expressway.
My office contact details remain the same, phone 365 5459 or 365 6172, or email anderton.wigram@parliament.govt.nz.
It is very generous of the Tulloch Group to accommodate us, as following the earthquake my staff worked out of my home and we held constituent clinics at the Rowley Community Centre. It was far from ideal. But we are now all back together and fully engaged.
Because we are sharing premises, constituents wishing to see me or my staff are requested to phone and make an appointment.
Petrol margins remain too high
While the current high price for petrol is being blamed solely on the high cost of oil, many people will be surprised and dismayed to learn that the margin of 29 cents a litre that petrol companies currently apply to fuel sales is nearly double their average margin of last year. Those record margins are indefensible and show the greed of petrol companies at a time when restraint is needed.
The price of petrol is too high because the Government has taken its eye off the ball and petrol companies know they won’t face any pressure for taking advantage of New Zealand consumers. Although the price of petrol has dropped from a record high of 221.9 cents a litre in early May to around 212.9 cents now, it could drop lower still if petrol companies were prepared to take a lower profit margin.
In early May the petrol companies’ margin on fuel was 29 cents per litre compared with an average of around 19 cents in the previous ten days. The lowest margin in the last year had been just 4 cents per litre.
As we all know, petrol prices are always fast to increase and slow to fall. These excessive prices are not just bad for consumers, but bad for business because transport costs are always passed on the consumer.
Given that the New Zealand dollar is now generally at a much higher rate than it has been against other currencies for the last twenty years, it is long past time that petrol companies showed a bit of control and acted in the interests of the country as a whole.
Rarely have I heard a speech of such breath-taking cynicism as Prime Minister John Key’s yesterday in support of the 2011 Budget. As his Government set us on a course to take New Zealand back to the very worst of National’s failed policies of the past, he had the gall to tell Parliament that the previous Labour-Progressive Government, of which I was a cabinet minister for 9 years, was responsible for the poor position this country is in.
Let’s look at the facts. In 2008, the Government had a fiscal surplus of $2.7 billion and its accounts were forecast to stay in surplus, unemployment was the lowest in the OECD and only 17% of children in New Zealand lived with someone reliant on a benefit. The Crown was contributing to the Superannuation Fund and had no net debt at all.
Yesterday the Government announced a deficit of $17 billion. In less than three years, unemployment is back at levels last seen in the nineties and 32 thousand more children live with someone reliant on a benefit. It is no accident.
Let’s look at where the current deficit comes from. The income tax cuts from 1 October last year cost $17.8 billion over four years. The top ten per cent of income earners alone got income tax cuts worth $44 million a week, which means that the government is borrowing two and a half billion dollars a year just for tax cuts for that top ten per cent of income earners.
Let’s now look at what this Budget has done? It has cut ‘Working for Families’, it has cut Kiwisaver and it has cut students loans and it has promised to sell off state-owned assets. But it has also allowed for the rich to keep their tax cuts of $44 million a week.
What we have is a government that is too weak to make the changes New Zealand needs, and there is a predictable outcome to this failure; ordinary people will suffer. When families don’t have adequate income, children end up living in poor housing conditions, they lack nourishment and they are not warm enough. Their health suffers and their opportunities suffer even more.
This National-led government should be ashamed of itself. It has not one single programme to fix the problem it has outlined and if it is voted back in office at this year’s General Election, it will come back and ask again for more because its policies have failed.
This Budget is a return to the failed policies of the nineties. It fails to create jobs, it fails to lift incomes and it fails to create a stronger future for New Zealand. In fact it is unarguably the worst I have seen in all of my years in Parliament.
My Budget Day speech can be found here.
Half of New Zealanders don’t have access to affordable dental care
Nearly half of all New Zealanders did not receive any dental care in the last year, partly, at least, because of the cost. The current economic conditions are making dental care even less affordable for New Zealanders.
Dental health is the ‘poor relation’ of our health system. It goes under the radar screen but the human and health costs are mounting.
I am launching an in-depth policy document to stimulate discussion about ways to fill the dental care hole in the health system, with the release at parliament next month of research about the extent of the problem and options for solving it.
The Government spokesperson said recently in the House that he was satisfied that New Zealanders have adequate access to affordable dental health care. He also said he was satisfied with the affordability of dental care, and only acknowledges ‘some’ can’t afford it. In fact 44% of all New Zealanders aren’t getting dental health care. That is more than ‘some.’
The Government also believes that hospital care is an adequate backstop. But people are queuing at dawn for that care, and they even then can only access emergency services such as pain relief and teeth extractions. The National-led government is minimising a serious problem and accepting Third World solutions.
If there is a single policy initiative that could make a difference to health outcomes for all New Zealanders, it would be access to affordable dental health care. Current economic conditions are putting affordable health care even further beyond the reach of average New Zealanders. We need action.
I’ve been studying the problem, and have developed some practical options for making dental care affordable, starting with sensible, practical steps we can take straight away. I’ll be releasing that document in late June.
With up to half of New Zealanders missing out on the dental health care they need, this is not a problem that can be ignored.
Inside the Red Zone
Almost three months after the 22 February Christchurch earthquake, I and the other Christchurch MPs toured the Red Zone earlier this week. The Red Zone is the inner city central business district which has remained strictly off limits to the general public. It was a stark and solemn reminder of the damage that was done on February 22 and of the tragic loss of life that occurred. The miracle was that not more lives were lost.
The destruction is almost inconceivable and to see from close quarters landmarks such as the Hotel Grand Chancellor leaning so perilously close to its neighbouring buildings was quite sobering. The other thing that struck me was boarded up buildings in deserted streets along with winter leaves piling up on the ground in the shadows of an autumn afternoon. It was reminiscent of the images we have seen of the aftermath of a nuclear winter.
The CTV site is now barren and the only reminder of what occurred there are wreaths of flowers placed on the ground, a poignant tribute to those who died. Elsewhere in the city, there are still piles of rubble waiting to be cleared and buildings with their insides exposed. In one, the whole side of a building had fallen off, leaving an upstairs bedroom open to an almost voyeuristic view of a small set of shelves holding folded clothes, completely undisturbed.
What was clear from our visit is that the process of making the central city safe is going to be a long one, and so too the enormity of the work ahead. With that in mind, I was delighted at the appointment of Roger Sutton to lead the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). The talents Roger has demonstrated in leading the power company Orion have not been replicated in any corporate infrastructure company I am aware of anywhere else in New Zealand. He brings a mix of skills that should successfully manage that difficult terrain between political and public pressures, the requirement to exercise good judgement and the need to show strong and inclusive leadership. I am looking forward to working with Roger to rebuild our city.
Those wishing to have a look at the inner city can do so by visiting Terralink’s earthquake street camera.
New electorate office
As a result of earthquake damage, my staff and I have had to relocate my Wigram electorate office, and we are now sharing the premises of the Tulloch Group, 2 Baigent Way. This is on the corner of Lunns Road, just off the southern expressway.
My office contact details remain the same, phone 365 5459 or 365 6172, or email anderton.wigram@parliament.govt.nz.
It is very generous of the Tulloch Group to accommodate us, as following the earthquake my staff worked out of my home and we held constituent clinics at the Rowley Community Centre. It was far from ideal. But we are now all back together and fully engaged.
Because we are sharing premises, constituents wishing to see me or my staff are requested to phone and make an appointment.
Petrol margins remain too high
While the current high price for petrol is being blamed solely on the high cost of oil, many people will be surprised and dismayed to learn that the margin of 29 cents a litre that petrol companies currently apply to fuel sales is nearly double their average margin of last year. Those record margins are indefensible and show the greed of petrol companies at a time when restraint is needed.
The price of petrol is too high because the Government has taken its eye off the ball and petrol companies know they won’t face any pressure for taking advantage of New Zealand consumers. Although the price of petrol has dropped from a record high of 221.9 cents a litre in early May to around 212.9 cents now, it could drop lower still if petrol companies were prepared to take a lower profit margin.
In early May the petrol companies’ margin on fuel was 29 cents per litre compared with an average of around 19 cents in the previous ten days. The lowest margin in the last year had been just 4 cents per litre.
As we all know, petrol prices are always fast to increase and slow to fall. These excessive prices are not just bad for consumers, but bad for business because transport costs are always passed on the consumer.
Given that the New Zealand dollar is now generally at a much higher rate than it has been against other currencies for the last twenty years, it is long past time that petrol companies showed a bit of control and acted in the interests of the country as a whole.
Leadership matters more than structure in Chch rebuild
12/04/11 17:52 Filed in: News Releases
The people to lead Canterbury’s rebuilding matter more than the structure, Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
He is supporting the government’s CERA legislation because Canterbury needs quality consultation and quick decisions.
“For some reason there is a view that public participation is in conflict with rapid decision-making. In fact they are both essential to each other. You cannot rebuild quickly if you don’t take all the people along with you, because people who are left out will challenge the process, they will feel disillusionment and ultimately the process will fail.”
Jim Anderton says the challenge for Christchurch is to shift our perspective from ‘recovering what we once were’ to ‘building what we seek to become.’
“This ability to re-imagine Christchurch requires leadership - leadership capable of engaging with all the city’s people. The success of what we have to do will depend on that leadership much more than the structure we have. I am not as concerned with the structure and design of the CERA as I am with having the right people to lead it.
“We need leaders who have the confidence of people and are able to communicate with them and get things done. The ability to engage the community and get things moving was the big disappointment after the first quake. It simply didn’t happen well enough, and not enough was done soon enough.
“So I understand why the Government has taken control, and I don’t blame them. It’s a recognition that a lot of taxpayer money is at stake, and also that things need to be handled better than they were after the first quake.
“What we need to see now, in this legislation, is a commitment to listening and making the community part of the rebuilding.
“People need to feel their views are taken into account and that the kind of Christchurch they want is being created. Because otherwise, if they feel it’s not the Christchurch they were born into, or came to, or want to experience again, they will feel no commitment to it,” Jim Anderton says.
He is supporting the government’s CERA legislation because Canterbury needs quality consultation and quick decisions.
“For some reason there is a view that public participation is in conflict with rapid decision-making. In fact they are both essential to each other. You cannot rebuild quickly if you don’t take all the people along with you, because people who are left out will challenge the process, they will feel disillusionment and ultimately the process will fail.”
Jim Anderton says the challenge for Christchurch is to shift our perspective from ‘recovering what we once were’ to ‘building what we seek to become.’
“This ability to re-imagine Christchurch requires leadership - leadership capable of engaging with all the city’s people. The success of what we have to do will depend on that leadership much more than the structure we have. I am not as concerned with the structure and design of the CERA as I am with having the right people to lead it.
“We need leaders who have the confidence of people and are able to communicate with them and get things done. The ability to engage the community and get things moving was the big disappointment after the first quake. It simply didn’t happen well enough, and not enough was done soon enough.
“So I understand why the Government has taken control, and I don’t blame them. It’s a recognition that a lot of taxpayer money is at stake, and also that things need to be handled better than they were after the first quake.
“What we need to see now, in this legislation, is a commitment to listening and making the community part of the rebuilding.
“People need to feel their views are taken into account and that the kind of Christchurch they want is being created. Because otherwise, if they feel it’s not the Christchurch they were born into, or came to, or want to experience again, they will feel no commitment to it,” Jim Anderton says.
CERA debate
12/04/11 17:50 Filed in: Speeches
Jim Anderton’s speech in Parliament on the second reading of the CERA Bill.
Mr Speaker
There are two things Canterbury people need:
- They need to get on with things as quickly as possible.
- And they need to be involved in decisions about the recovery.
For some reason there is a view that public participation is in conflict with rapid decision-making. In fact they are both essential to each other.
You cannot rebuild quickly if you don’t take all the people along with you, because people who are left out will challenge the process, they will feel disillusionment and ultimately the process will fail.
And there is no point consulting if you don’t get processes and decisions moving because people will simply leave, or they will stay away, or they will try to push on on their own, when what we need is to coordinate efforts.
So I support this CERA Bill because it enables the immense amount of work Christchurch faces to be done, and it offers the opportunity for genuine consultation.
Offering an opportunity for consultation is not the same, of course, as taking the opportunity.
So I want to warn that it is critical that CERA consults, and that the process is open, transparent and accountable.
And that’s why I will be supporting amendments to the Bill at the committee stage.
I recently read an article by Steven Ames that summarises the challenge for Christchurch:
We have to shift our perspective from ‘recovering what we once were’ to ‘building what we seek to become.’
He outlines the phases in the road back from disaster:
- Rescue in the hours after the emergency,
- Recovery as we reconnect water and power and the like.
- And then rebuilding - the stage we are now entering.
- But a comparison of cities that have rebuilt brilliantly and cities that have struggled shows the need for a fourth stage.
Ames describes it as ‘revisioning’.
The ultimate success of rebuilding depends on how much the city is able to understand how its context has changed.
…How much it understands where it maybe headed, what emerging trends and issues lie ahead.
…And - most importantly - what it might aspire to be.
I want to read into the record his conclusion:
“City leaders would be remiss only to think of what must be rebuilt or replaced to bring the city back to where it was on the eve of the quake.
“Human nature suggests that when disaster strikes we hunker down, convinced we cannot afford the luxury of thinking beyond our most urgent needs.
“But this moment also represents a singular opportunity for Christchurch and all Canterbury to rethink revision and reinvent itself.”
This ability to re-imagine Christchurch requires leadership - leadership capable of engaging with all the city’s people.
The success of what we have to do will depend on that leadership much more than the structure we have.
I am not as concerned with the structure and design of the CERA as I am with having the right people.
We need people leading the rebuild who understand the stages of recovery I quoted.
We need people with experience managing large enterprises, who understand Christchurch, its ethos and culture.
We need leaders who have the confidence of people and are able to communicate with them and get things done.
The ability to engage the community and get things moving was the big disappointment after the first quake.
It simply didn’t happen well enough, and not enough was done soon enough.
Contrast what has happened up in Kaiapoi.
They got cracking early, talking to people, and they held community meetings where people could put up their ideas.
That was reflected back to the community, a strategic plan was drawn up and signed off, and they are going ahead rapidly.
Christchurch is nowhere near that position.
Dealing with the problems is not easy - that’s true, but it hasn’t been as fast as it needs to be, and it hasn’t - to date - adequately involved people, and that needs to change.
So I understand why the Government has taken control, and I don’t blame them.
It’s a recognition that a lot of taxpayer money is at stake, and also that things need to be handled better than they were after the first quake.
What we need to see now, in this legislation, is a commitment to listening and making the community part of the rebuilding.
People need to feel their views are taken into account and the kind of Chjristchurch they want is being created.
Because otherwise, if they feel it’s not the Christchurch they came to, or want to experience again, they will feel no commitment to it.
I recognise the government has not abused its sweeping and extraordinary powers under the first Christchurch emergency legislation.
This gives hope that it will continue to use its powers with good faith in the future.
But it has to do more than that. It has to reach out to a shocked and fragile community and engage with them.
That is how we will move from recovery to rebuilding for a new vision of what Christchurch can be.
Mr Speaker
There are two things Canterbury people need:
- They need to get on with things as quickly as possible.
- And they need to be involved in decisions about the recovery.
For some reason there is a view that public participation is in conflict with rapid decision-making. In fact they are both essential to each other.
You cannot rebuild quickly if you don’t take all the people along with you, because people who are left out will challenge the process, they will feel disillusionment and ultimately the process will fail.
And there is no point consulting if you don’t get processes and decisions moving because people will simply leave, or they will stay away, or they will try to push on on their own, when what we need is to coordinate efforts.
So I support this CERA Bill because it enables the immense amount of work Christchurch faces to be done, and it offers the opportunity for genuine consultation.
Offering an opportunity for consultation is not the same, of course, as taking the opportunity.
So I want to warn that it is critical that CERA consults, and that the process is open, transparent and accountable.
And that’s why I will be supporting amendments to the Bill at the committee stage.
I recently read an article by Steven Ames that summarises the challenge for Christchurch:
We have to shift our perspective from ‘recovering what we once were’ to ‘building what we seek to become.’
He outlines the phases in the road back from disaster:
- Rescue in the hours after the emergency,
- Recovery as we reconnect water and power and the like.
- And then rebuilding - the stage we are now entering.
- But a comparison of cities that have rebuilt brilliantly and cities that have struggled shows the need for a fourth stage.
Ames describes it as ‘revisioning’.
The ultimate success of rebuilding depends on how much the city is able to understand how its context has changed.
…How much it understands where it maybe headed, what emerging trends and issues lie ahead.
…And - most importantly - what it might aspire to be.
I want to read into the record his conclusion:
“City leaders would be remiss only to think of what must be rebuilt or replaced to bring the city back to where it was on the eve of the quake.
“Human nature suggests that when disaster strikes we hunker down, convinced we cannot afford the luxury of thinking beyond our most urgent needs.
“But this moment also represents a singular opportunity for Christchurch and all Canterbury to rethink revision and reinvent itself.”
This ability to re-imagine Christchurch requires leadership - leadership capable of engaging with all the city’s people.
The success of what we have to do will depend on that leadership much more than the structure we have.
I am not as concerned with the structure and design of the CERA as I am with having the right people.
We need people leading the rebuild who understand the stages of recovery I quoted.
We need people with experience managing large enterprises, who understand Christchurch, its ethos and culture.
We need leaders who have the confidence of people and are able to communicate with them and get things done.
The ability to engage the community and get things moving was the big disappointment after the first quake.
It simply didn’t happen well enough, and not enough was done soon enough.
Contrast what has happened up in Kaiapoi.
They got cracking early, talking to people, and they held community meetings where people could put up their ideas.
That was reflected back to the community, a strategic plan was drawn up and signed off, and they are going ahead rapidly.
Christchurch is nowhere near that position.
Dealing with the problems is not easy - that’s true, but it hasn’t been as fast as it needs to be, and it hasn’t - to date - adequately involved people, and that needs to change.
So I understand why the Government has taken control, and I don’t blame them.
It’s a recognition that a lot of taxpayer money is at stake, and also that things need to be handled better than they were after the first quake.
What we need to see now, in this legislation, is a commitment to listening and making the community part of the rebuilding.
People need to feel their views are taken into account and the kind of Chjristchurch they want is being created.
Because otherwise, if they feel it’s not the Christchurch they came to, or want to experience again, they will feel no commitment to it.
I recognise the government has not abused its sweeping and extraordinary powers under the first Christchurch emergency legislation.
This gives hope that it will continue to use its powers with good faith in the future.
But it has to do more than that. It has to reach out to a shocked and fragile community and engage with them.
That is how we will move from recovery to rebuilding for a new vision of what Christchurch can be.
AMI bail-out
07/04/11 15:21 Filed in: News Releases
AMI bail-out: Government should sometimes get involved in profitable businesses too
The necessity for a government bail-out of AMI is a slap in the face for people who say government should have no role in the economy, Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
“Just as with South Canterbury Finance, Air NZ, Kiwirail and Kiwibank - sometimes the government has no responsible choice but to get involved in the economy.
“The difference between me and the National party is that National only gets involved in catastrophes, while I think that if we are going to be there in the bad times, taxpayers should share in some of the good times too.” Jim Anderton said.
The necessity for a government bail-out of AMI is a slap in the face for people who say government should have no role in the economy, Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
“Just as with South Canterbury Finance, Air NZ, Kiwirail and Kiwibank - sometimes the government has no responsible choice but to get involved in the economy.
“The difference between me and the National party is that National only gets involved in catastrophes, while I think that if we are going to be there in the bad times, taxpayers should share in some of the good times too.” Jim Anderton said.
Help pay for Chch with $462m from top 5%
07/04/11 11:57 Filed in: News Releases
The country will be $462 million deeper in the red this year because of the cut in the top personal tax rate for those on incomes of over $100,000 a year, Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
He says the cut in the tax rate for the top 5% is worth at least $4.6 billion over ten years, which could be used to help meet the cost of rebuilding Christchurch and give young jobless Cantabrians trade skills to rebuild the city.
“The Government says the deficit is very big this year. It could reduce that deficit by reversing some of the tax cut they gave on 1 October, at least temporarily. Earners on incomes of over $100,000 would still get the benefit of tax cuts on income below $100,000 - the same tax cuts everyone else gets. The highest income earners in New Zealand would still get at least $500 million in tax cuts.
“But the country desperately needs the money now. The large deficit means the unaffordable 1 October 2010 top tax rate cut needs to be reversed. Surely NZ’s highest income earners would not object to that course of action”.
A calculation table is available on Treasury’s website here.
It shows income of around $9.3 billion is earned by those with incomes over $100,000. Using Treasury’s methodology, the difference in government revenue is calculated by multiplying that figure by 0.06 (i.e., 6 cents in the dollar, from 33 cent tax rate to 39 cent), and then applying a deflator of 17.3% (because, for example, some of the income won’t be spent and attract GST).
This gives a total cost - and therefore an increase in the fiscal deficit - of $462 million this year.
He says the cut in the tax rate for the top 5% is worth at least $4.6 billion over ten years, which could be used to help meet the cost of rebuilding Christchurch and give young jobless Cantabrians trade skills to rebuild the city.
“The Government says the deficit is very big this year. It could reduce that deficit by reversing some of the tax cut they gave on 1 October, at least temporarily. Earners on incomes of over $100,000 would still get the benefit of tax cuts on income below $100,000 - the same tax cuts everyone else gets. The highest income earners in New Zealand would still get at least $500 million in tax cuts.
“But the country desperately needs the money now. The large deficit means the unaffordable 1 October 2010 top tax rate cut needs to be reversed. Surely NZ’s highest income earners would not object to that course of action”.
A calculation table is available on Treasury’s website here.
It shows income of around $9.3 billion is earned by those with incomes over $100,000. Using Treasury’s methodology, the difference in government revenue is calculated by multiplying that figure by 0.06 (i.e., 6 cents in the dollar, from 33 cent tax rate to 39 cent), and then applying a deflator of 17.3% (because, for example, some of the income won’t be spent and attract GST).
This gives a total cost - and therefore an increase in the fiscal deficit - of $462 million this year.
Jim's E-News, April 2011
05/04/11 09:57 Filed in: Newsletters
Twenty seconds of terror
It took little more than twenty seconds, but the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February brought terror to a city that was almost unimaginable. Someone asked me whether the images on television and newspapers exaggerated the event, but they did not. In that short time, buildings toppled and roads buckled and cracked in a way that I never imagined possible, and far outweighed the damage caused by the earlier quakes in September last year.
Although I was in Wellington when the 22 February quake struck, my wife Carole was driving home through the Christchurch city centre and so powerful was the force she thought the car had been hit by a truck.
It is good to be able to report that our families and my Christchurch staff are all safe and well, although all have suffered some damage to homes and sections. The roof in our home was badly damaged and we have had to revert to that old practice of getting out the buckets to catch the drips when it rains.
While, fortunately, none of my staff or family was physically injured, most have been left quite unsettled by the event, something which probably reflects the experience of most people in Christchurch. My office in Selwyn Street has been cordoned off and we have just been told that it will have to be demolished, a sad way to end around 20 years in that particular office.
We are currently looking for a new office, but in the meantime my staff and I are working out of my house and from their homes, and we are holding constituent clinics in the Rowley Resource Centre. Our phone numbers and email addresses are all the same, and so constituents needing to contact us should continue to do so by phone or email.
Now the work starts
The work rebuilding Christchurch is one that presents as many opportunities as challenges and I have been working as much as is possible with my parliamentary colleagues to ensure that we do the best for our city.
We are working at two levels. The first is in a quite practical way to assist constituents who have suffered loss or damage, whether they be residents or local business owners. Aside from such things as loss of power, sewerage and water, there are also homes and buildings which have been damaged, in many cases irretrievably. This has spawned a number of problems, with people needing to find new homes and, in many cases, finding that insurance policies didn’t live up to expectations. The other MPs, city councillors and I are also being briefed twice a week by Civil Defence and Council authorities.
The other level we are working at is at a national one, and most people will now be aware that the Government has set up a new ministry, The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), to take charge of the recovery and rebuild from here. The National Government and Earthquake Minister Brownlee did not consult with local Labour MPs or me in the development of CERA, however it is evident that the tasks which lie ahead are too great for the Christchurch City Council alone, and so the establishment of a new ministry was inevitable.
Within its structure, CERA has a “Cross Party Forum” which will allow MPs to advise Minister Brownlee, and there is an opportunity for widespread community consultation, so we will be working hard to ensure that it is an effective body. There are, however, some real dangers with CERA, in particular with its power to relax, suspend or extend laws and regulations, and it can, for example, acquire, hold, deal with and dispose of property, and to call-in the powers and functions of a local authority or council organisation.
The work of CERA and progress towards the rebuilding of Christchurch will be reported in future newsletters.
Wood critical element in rebuild
While the Earthquake Minister may be trumpeting his view that old “dunger” stone and brick buildings in Christchurch should be knocked over and replaced, he fails to take into account that the most notable earthquake casualties, in terms of building collapse leading to loss of life, were modern buildings, their construction primarily of concrete and steel.
For some years now, I have been advocating the use of wood for commercial buildings, and the Christchurch rebuild is a perfect opportunity to showcase the merits of wooden buildings. My view is supported by mounting social, scientific and engineering evidence which shows that wood has the characteristics needed for a safe, modern city. As well as being safe, wood is a renewable resource with a plentiful supply, it is ecologically sound, less expensive than many alternatives and is an attractive, iconic New Zealand product. Strange as it may seem, laminated wood members have excellent fire resistance because the slow rate of surface charring protects the wood inside the beams and columns.
Researchers at the University of Canterbury, comparing the potential of commercial buildings constructed of wood against concrete and steel, concluded that timber construction is ideally suited to multi-storey building because of its high strength-to-weight ratio. The lightweight nature of predominantly timber buildings requires a lower earthquake loading than for a reinforced concrete one, wood being one quarter the weight of concrete for the same sized components.
Another benefit is that the new construction engineering methods, particularly using laminated wood, have changed plain old radiata pine from an export commodity into a high quality engineering material. There seems little sense in exporting raw logs when they could be successfully turned into high quality construction products right here and save on the need to import other construction materials. In other words we can create jobs rather than export them.
There is, therefore, no reason that Christchurch cannot become a world-leader in innovative, medium-rise wooden commercial buildings. We have sufficient wood resources and we now have among us the designers, architects, construction engineers and builders with the expertise to get on with the job, and many are waiting to do just that.
More:
Stuff
World Architecture News
NZ Wood
Select Committee on the Alcohol Reform Bill I recently appeared before the Select Committee on the Alcohol Reform Bill to speak to my submission which called for a number of crucial measures to address this country’s heavy drinking culture.
In particular, I urged the Committee to recommend a return of the minimum drinking age to 20 years, with no exceptions, to seek advice from officials on how a minimum price regime could be introduced to ensure a reduction in alcohol consumption, to stop the advertising of alcohol (other than that which communicates product information) and to develop a blueprint for addiction service delivery for the next five years.
In its report, the Law Commission recommended that blood alcohol limits be reduced from 80mgs of alcohol per 100mls of blood to 50mgs for all drivers, with zero tolerance for drivers under 20 years of age. Despite that, the Government said it needs more evidence before making any changes, and has decided not to lower the limit at this stage. I asked the Committee to review that position as I believe there is sufficient evidence already available, including the Ministry of Transport saying that the single most effective measure the Government could enact to decrease drunk driving deaths, injury and social/economic and human costs would be to decrease the drink driving limit from 80mgs to 50mgs per 100mls of blood.
Similarly, when blood alcohol levels were reduced from 50mgs to 20mgs in Sweden there was a 10% reduction in road/driving fatalities. It is that simple.
Although most measures in the Alcohol Reform Bill are positive, its failure to include the steps I have set out reflects a serious deficiency in what is our best opportunity for years to deal comprehensively with alcohol reform in general and its outrageous toll on our communities in particular.
There is no doubt that, as long as alcohol continues to be sold as a normal commodity at neighbourhood stores and supermarkets, there will continue to be billions of dollars of harm in New Zealand each year, including 20 deaths per week and 70,000 alcohol-related physical and sexual assaults each year. That is 1350 per week. One third of all police arrests involve alcohol, and it just doesn’t seem too difficult to do something about it.
Government, not quake, caused greatest deficit in history
I am confident that the New Zealand public will see John Key and his National Government’s claim that the “biggest budget deficit in history” is just a result of the Canterbury earthquake as the nonsense it is.
John Key recently told TVNZ that the May 19 Budget will include the biggest deficit in history mainly because of the cost of the rebuild and recovery in Christchurch. That claim is simply untrue and designed to conceal the devastating effects of last year’s bad economic decisions made by him and his government
The Government is conveniently using the earthquakes to mask something we all know; that the National Government has no economic plan and that the recession is a result of its inept management. Even Treasury said in its recent update that two thirds of the deficit was happening before the 22 February earthquake hit.
While we cannot argue that the earthquakes have not had an impact, the economy was already deeply in the red. That’s because the Government’s so-called “tax switch” last year was not revenue neutral as it claimed. In fact it has given billions of dollars more to top earners than we could afford.
To now blame Christchurch is an insult to the hardworking people who are trying to put the city back together.
The other thing that John Key fails to take into account is that the cost of the earthquakes does not have to be met in a single year, and no-one expects the rebuild to be completed in a year.
Care needed with biosecurity charges
The new Biosecurity Law Reform Bill currently being debated in parliament will make it possible for farmers to be charged for the cost of cleaning up biosecurity incursions as well as the cost of keeping pests out.
While I accept that industry should make some contribution towards biosecurity costs, in its current form the proposed law is impractical and doesn’t take account of the possible consequences for the entire agricultural and horticultural sectors if they are charged the full amount for biosecurity protections. An across the board charge is impractical and any imposition of costs has to be carefully considered.
But in what is currently proposed there isn’t an even match between costs of biosecurity protection and sectors that reap the benefits.
The last Labour-Progressive government recognised the principle of getting businesses with a stake in the outcome to shoulder some of the responsibility of keeping pests out, but it doesn’t make sense and it is unfair to put all the costs on the sector that is being affected by a potential incursion. The benefits from one sector spill over to others.
For example, if beekeepers had been forced to cover the entire cost of keeping the varroa bee mite out, or its eradication after it arrived, that could have crippled and ended the beekeeping industry. But it is not just the beekeeping industry which benefits from controlling the varroa mite; our entire horticultural sector and much of our agricultural production depends on bees for such things as crop pollination. So even if it is not economic for beekeepers to fight varroa, it is critically important for the rest of our horticultural and agricultural sectors to have a thriving bee industry and that it why it is a much wider issue than just for beekeepers. The costs of keeping pests out would be enough to wipe out a key sector that benefits a much larger part of the economy.
The Government needs to redraft its biosecurity statute to better work with agricultural industry sectors.
There are some producers who benefit from pest control but want someone else to pay for it. But there are also industry sectors which would benefit from having a stake in making sure pests are kept out. It is essential to ensure costs don’t fall in a way that wipes out some critically important parts of our agricultural economic base.
It took little more than twenty seconds, but the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February brought terror to a city that was almost unimaginable. Someone asked me whether the images on television and newspapers exaggerated the event, but they did not. In that short time, buildings toppled and roads buckled and cracked in a way that I never imagined possible, and far outweighed the damage caused by the earlier quakes in September last year.
Although I was in Wellington when the 22 February quake struck, my wife Carole was driving home through the Christchurch city centre and so powerful was the force she thought the car had been hit by a truck.
It is good to be able to report that our families and my Christchurch staff are all safe and well, although all have suffered some damage to homes and sections. The roof in our home was badly damaged and we have had to revert to that old practice of getting out the buckets to catch the drips when it rains.
While, fortunately, none of my staff or family was physically injured, most have been left quite unsettled by the event, something which probably reflects the experience of most people in Christchurch. My office in Selwyn Street has been cordoned off and we have just been told that it will have to be demolished, a sad way to end around 20 years in that particular office.
We are currently looking for a new office, but in the meantime my staff and I are working out of my house and from their homes, and we are holding constituent clinics in the Rowley Resource Centre. Our phone numbers and email addresses are all the same, and so constituents needing to contact us should continue to do so by phone or email.
Now the work starts
The work rebuilding Christchurch is one that presents as many opportunities as challenges and I have been working as much as is possible with my parliamentary colleagues to ensure that we do the best for our city.
We are working at two levels. The first is in a quite practical way to assist constituents who have suffered loss or damage, whether they be residents or local business owners. Aside from such things as loss of power, sewerage and water, there are also homes and buildings which have been damaged, in many cases irretrievably. This has spawned a number of problems, with people needing to find new homes and, in many cases, finding that insurance policies didn’t live up to expectations. The other MPs, city councillors and I are also being briefed twice a week by Civil Defence and Council authorities.
The other level we are working at is at a national one, and most people will now be aware that the Government has set up a new ministry, The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), to take charge of the recovery and rebuild from here. The National Government and Earthquake Minister Brownlee did not consult with local Labour MPs or me in the development of CERA, however it is evident that the tasks which lie ahead are too great for the Christchurch City Council alone, and so the establishment of a new ministry was inevitable.
Within its structure, CERA has a “Cross Party Forum” which will allow MPs to advise Minister Brownlee, and there is an opportunity for widespread community consultation, so we will be working hard to ensure that it is an effective body. There are, however, some real dangers with CERA, in particular with its power to relax, suspend or extend laws and regulations, and it can, for example, acquire, hold, deal with and dispose of property, and to call-in the powers and functions of a local authority or council organisation.
The work of CERA and progress towards the rebuilding of Christchurch will be reported in future newsletters.
Wood critical element in rebuild
While the Earthquake Minister may be trumpeting his view that old “dunger” stone and brick buildings in Christchurch should be knocked over and replaced, he fails to take into account that the most notable earthquake casualties, in terms of building collapse leading to loss of life, were modern buildings, their construction primarily of concrete and steel.
For some years now, I have been advocating the use of wood for commercial buildings, and the Christchurch rebuild is a perfect opportunity to showcase the merits of wooden buildings. My view is supported by mounting social, scientific and engineering evidence which shows that wood has the characteristics needed for a safe, modern city. As well as being safe, wood is a renewable resource with a plentiful supply, it is ecologically sound, less expensive than many alternatives and is an attractive, iconic New Zealand product. Strange as it may seem, laminated wood members have excellent fire resistance because the slow rate of surface charring protects the wood inside the beams and columns.
Researchers at the University of Canterbury, comparing the potential of commercial buildings constructed of wood against concrete and steel, concluded that timber construction is ideally suited to multi-storey building because of its high strength-to-weight ratio. The lightweight nature of predominantly timber buildings requires a lower earthquake loading than for a reinforced concrete one, wood being one quarter the weight of concrete for the same sized components.
Another benefit is that the new construction engineering methods, particularly using laminated wood, have changed plain old radiata pine from an export commodity into a high quality engineering material. There seems little sense in exporting raw logs when they could be successfully turned into high quality construction products right here and save on the need to import other construction materials. In other words we can create jobs rather than export them.
There is, therefore, no reason that Christchurch cannot become a world-leader in innovative, medium-rise wooden commercial buildings. We have sufficient wood resources and we now have among us the designers, architects, construction engineers and builders with the expertise to get on with the job, and many are waiting to do just that.
More:
Stuff
World Architecture News
NZ Wood
Select Committee on the Alcohol Reform Bill I recently appeared before the Select Committee on the Alcohol Reform Bill to speak to my submission which called for a number of crucial measures to address this country’s heavy drinking culture.
In particular, I urged the Committee to recommend a return of the minimum drinking age to 20 years, with no exceptions, to seek advice from officials on how a minimum price regime could be introduced to ensure a reduction in alcohol consumption, to stop the advertising of alcohol (other than that which communicates product information) and to develop a blueprint for addiction service delivery for the next five years.
In its report, the Law Commission recommended that blood alcohol limits be reduced from 80mgs of alcohol per 100mls of blood to 50mgs for all drivers, with zero tolerance for drivers under 20 years of age. Despite that, the Government said it needs more evidence before making any changes, and has decided not to lower the limit at this stage. I asked the Committee to review that position as I believe there is sufficient evidence already available, including the Ministry of Transport saying that the single most effective measure the Government could enact to decrease drunk driving deaths, injury and social/economic and human costs would be to decrease the drink driving limit from 80mgs to 50mgs per 100mls of blood.
Similarly, when blood alcohol levels were reduced from 50mgs to 20mgs in Sweden there was a 10% reduction in road/driving fatalities. It is that simple.
Although most measures in the Alcohol Reform Bill are positive, its failure to include the steps I have set out reflects a serious deficiency in what is our best opportunity for years to deal comprehensively with alcohol reform in general and its outrageous toll on our communities in particular.
There is no doubt that, as long as alcohol continues to be sold as a normal commodity at neighbourhood stores and supermarkets, there will continue to be billions of dollars of harm in New Zealand each year, including 20 deaths per week and 70,000 alcohol-related physical and sexual assaults each year. That is 1350 per week. One third of all police arrests involve alcohol, and it just doesn’t seem too difficult to do something about it.
Government, not quake, caused greatest deficit in history
I am confident that the New Zealand public will see John Key and his National Government’s claim that the “biggest budget deficit in history” is just a result of the Canterbury earthquake as the nonsense it is.
John Key recently told TVNZ that the May 19 Budget will include the biggest deficit in history mainly because of the cost of the rebuild and recovery in Christchurch. That claim is simply untrue and designed to conceal the devastating effects of last year’s bad economic decisions made by him and his government
The Government is conveniently using the earthquakes to mask something we all know; that the National Government has no economic plan and that the recession is a result of its inept management. Even Treasury said in its recent update that two thirds of the deficit was happening before the 22 February earthquake hit.
While we cannot argue that the earthquakes have not had an impact, the economy was already deeply in the red. That’s because the Government’s so-called “tax switch” last year was not revenue neutral as it claimed. In fact it has given billions of dollars more to top earners than we could afford.
To now blame Christchurch is an insult to the hardworking people who are trying to put the city back together.
The other thing that John Key fails to take into account is that the cost of the earthquakes does not have to be met in a single year, and no-one expects the rebuild to be completed in a year.
Care needed with biosecurity charges
The new Biosecurity Law Reform Bill currently being debated in parliament will make it possible for farmers to be charged for the cost of cleaning up biosecurity incursions as well as the cost of keeping pests out.
While I accept that industry should make some contribution towards biosecurity costs, in its current form the proposed law is impractical and doesn’t take account of the possible consequences for the entire agricultural and horticultural sectors if they are charged the full amount for biosecurity protections. An across the board charge is impractical and any imposition of costs has to be carefully considered.
But in what is currently proposed there isn’t an even match between costs of biosecurity protection and sectors that reap the benefits.
The last Labour-Progressive government recognised the principle of getting businesses with a stake in the outcome to shoulder some of the responsibility of keeping pests out, but it doesn’t make sense and it is unfair to put all the costs on the sector that is being affected by a potential incursion. The benefits from one sector spill over to others.
For example, if beekeepers had been forced to cover the entire cost of keeping the varroa bee mite out, or its eradication after it arrived, that could have crippled and ended the beekeeping industry. But it is not just the beekeeping industry which benefits from controlling the varroa mite; our entire horticultural sector and much of our agricultural production depends on bees for such things as crop pollination. So even if it is not economic for beekeepers to fight varroa, it is critically important for the rest of our horticultural and agricultural sectors to have a thriving bee industry and that it why it is a much wider issue than just for beekeepers. The costs of keeping pests out would be enough to wipe out a key sector that benefits a much larger part of the economy.
The Government needs to redraft its biosecurity statute to better work with agricultural industry sectors.
There are some producers who benefit from pest control but want someone else to pay for it. But there are also industry sectors which would benefit from having a stake in making sure pests are kept out. It is essential to ensure costs don’t fall in a way that wipes out some critically important parts of our agricultural economic base.
Government, not quake, caused greatest deficit in history
28/03/11 13:45 Filed in: News Releases
Claims that the ‘biggest budget deficit in history’ are all a result of the Canterbury earthquake are untrue and designed to conceal the devastating effects of last year’s bad economic decisions, says Christchurch MP Jim Anderton.
John Key told TVNZ today that the May 19 budget will include the biggest deficit in history, mainly because of the cost of the rebuild and recovery in Christchurch. “We need to pay for the earthquake, it’ll get booked to the account straight away," he claimed.
But Jim Anderton says the Prime Minister's claims are untrue.
“The National Government is myth-making. Even Treasury said in its update that two thirds of the deficit was happening before the second earthquake hit. The recession was caused by the National Government, not by the earthquake.
“The earthquake is expensive, but the economy was already deeply in the red when the earthquake hit.
“That’s because the Government’s so-called ‘tax switch’ last year was not revenue neutral as it claimed. In fact it has given billions of dollars more to top earners than we could afford.
“To now blame Christchurch is an insult to the hardworking people who are trying to put the city back together.
"Nor is there a reason to take much of the entire cost of the earthquake in a single year. No one expects the rebuild to be completed in a year. The Government hasn’t even got temporary accommodation underway from the first earthquake, when Japan is already building hundreds of temporary homes within weeks of its quake. For John Key to then claim that this inaction is causing great expense is simply untrue,” Jim Anderton said.
John Key told TVNZ today that the May 19 budget will include the biggest deficit in history, mainly because of the cost of the rebuild and recovery in Christchurch. “We need to pay for the earthquake, it’ll get booked to the account straight away," he claimed.
But Jim Anderton says the Prime Minister's claims are untrue.
“The National Government is myth-making. Even Treasury said in its update that two thirds of the deficit was happening before the second earthquake hit. The recession was caused by the National Government, not by the earthquake.
“The earthquake is expensive, but the economy was already deeply in the red when the earthquake hit.
“That’s because the Government’s so-called ‘tax switch’ last year was not revenue neutral as it claimed. In fact it has given billions of dollars more to top earners than we could afford.
“To now blame Christchurch is an insult to the hardworking people who are trying to put the city back together.
"Nor is there a reason to take much of the entire cost of the earthquake in a single year. No one expects the rebuild to be completed in a year. The Government hasn’t even got temporary accommodation underway from the first earthquake, when Japan is already building hundreds of temporary homes within weeks of its quake. For John Key to then claim that this inaction is causing great expense is simply untrue,” Jim Anderton said.
Earthquake News Update
01/03/11 08:21 Filed in: News Releases
The earthquakes which have struck Christchurch have caused widespread devastation.
My sympathies go out to all who have been affected, particularly those who have lost loved ones, been injured or sustained loss in any way.
I hope you and your family are coping without too much stress or loss at this difficult time.
In a time of crisis, we all rely on family, friends and neighbours. Please lend a hand to the elderly or sick in your community and to those most in need, as it may be sometime before normality resumes.
My office has been damaged but the phones and email are working and staff are available (working from home – with phone calls transferred) to assist. In some cases a message will need to be left, but we will deal with calls as fast as we can.
My best wishes and warmest regards to you all.
- Jim Anderton
My sympathies go out to all who have been affected, particularly those who have lost loved ones, been injured or sustained loss in any way.
I hope you and your family are coping without too much stress or loss at this difficult time.
In a time of crisis, we all rely on family, friends and neighbours. Please lend a hand to the elderly or sick in your community and to those most in need, as it may be sometime before normality resumes.
My office has been damaged but the phones and email are working and staff are available (working from home – with phone calls transferred) to assist. In some cases a message will need to be left, but we will deal with calls as fast as we can.
My best wishes and warmest regards to you all.
- Jim Anderton
Jim's E-News, February 2011
18/02/11 15:29 Filed in: Newsletters
Key short on answers to economy
Parliament resumed earlier this month and in my first speech for the year, I questioned whether John Key’s words about ‘aspirational’ government and his pledges for progress and prosperity for the nation were nothing more than the rhetoric we heard after the Canterbury earthquakes. Lots of hype, but little action!
Here are the problems that Mr Key faces: After more than two years of his government, economic growth has stopped. Any so-called recovery has stalled. Unemployment is going up, not down, with youth unemployment going through the roof. Jobs are being lost, not created. The cost of living is increasing, but incomes aren’t keeping pace, particularly for low to middle income New Zealanders.
You might ask what the Prime Minister’s strategy is to tackle those problems. The answer is that he doesn’t have one. His economic policy consists of asset sales. That is not an economic policy: It is a surrender of the sovereignty of New Zealand. Not one new job will be created by selling-off the people’s power companies, but every one of us will be paying higher power bills to the new overseas owners. We know this because we’ve seen it all before.
The National Party says selling assets will pay off debt. That is exactly what was said in the eighties by Roger Douglas. It’s what was said in the nineties by the National Government, and we all know what happened. We became worse off.
Mr Key says the assets will be kept in New Zealand hands. That is what they said about Contact Energy, the Bank of New Zealand, Postbank, Air New Zealand, NZ Rail and practically every other strategic asset which was privatised. And it was nonsense.
Who owns those assets now? Not the Kiwi mums and dads Mr Key talks about. The majority interests (apart from those the last Labour-led government bought back) are mainly held in Australia.
It doesn’t take too much analysis to work out that, if there is a debt crisis and the country is borrowing too much, the $43 million a week given by the National Government in tax cuts to the top ten per cent of income earners last year would have gone a considerable way to fixing the problem.
My speech to Parliament can be found here.
Victory over DB Export ad
The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled in favour of my complaint against the DB Export beer advertising campaign, agreeing with me that the presentation of film footage from the 1951 waterfront lockout riots as portraying civil unrest in response to Finance Minister Arnold Nordmeyer’s 1958 Budget was wrong and misleading. As a result, the Authority has requested that the ads in their present form be withdrawn.
The ads, set in the time of the so-called ‘Black Budget’, portray Nordmeyer as a tight-fisted old bore who taxed beer to the extent that working men could no longer afford to drink. In what was then a distortion of epic proportion, the ad went on to show archive footage of men rioting, ostensibly over the price of beer, when in fact the footage was from the 1951 waterfront lockout.
The Complaints Board agreed that footage used in the advertisements was ‘demonstrably false’ and it considered ‘the execution of ‘documentary type’ style, contrasting black and white screen-shots and accompanying authoritative narration coupled with actual footage of riots (from a different historical event) gave the impression that the advertisements were portraying a credible and realistic depiction of history’.
The Board also decided that the advertisements ‘went too far and the likely consumer conclusion was that the account portrayed in the advertisements was an accurate depiction of history, when it was no such thing’.
This ad went further than just distorting history; it was deliberately making barbed threats to politicians that any increase in the tax on beer would be met by brewing companies spending tens of millions dollars to attack them. It was no accident these ads were made at the very time the Law Commission was looking at reforming liquor legislation, including by having tighter controls over its advertising.
This shows just how far the liquor industry will go and how dishonestly they will act to protect and promote their products.
My press release can be found here.
There is more coverage on 3 News and in the Herald.
End link between alcohol and sport
Earlier this month, I spoke to the ‘Sport and Alcohol: Finding the Balance’ conference at Massey University, calling for an end to the sponsorship of sport by alcohol companies. My message was that normalising the association between beer and sport sends all the wrong messages, just as it did with the links between tobacco companies and sporting bodies in the past.The three day conference, which was sponsored by ALAC in association with Massey University, looked at a wide variety of issues, including the alcohol industry and hazardous drinking among sports people, the effects of alcohol on sport and the changing face of sports and alcohol-related culture. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, representatives of the liquor industry were nowhere to be seen.
By citing examples of the methods used by the alcohol industry to link sport and alcohol, from sponsorship at junior club level to corporate hospitality and sponsorship of sporting stars, I was able to show that even the youngest players are in no doubt that beer is an integral part of sport in New Zealand.
You have to look no further than the All Blacks to see this, with beer branding liberally plastered over their playing outfits, promotional material and almost every piece of memorabilia. The marketers know that youngsters like to emulate their All Black heroes and exploit this as much as they can. What they are doing by targeting the young is creating customers for life.
I told the conference that, as long as brewers continue to have an association with sport, there is no way of changing New Zealand’s heavy drinking culture. And by associating with sporting brilliance the alcohol industry sells more beer, and the brewers laugh all the way to the bank.
Many sporting bodies will tell us they would not survive without sponsorship from liquor companies, but that it not true. They said the same when tobacco sponsorship became prohibited; cricket was traditionally sponsored by tobacco companies but what then happened was that others, including the National Bank, stepped in. The same can happen now with liquor sponsorship. What it may require is some assistance from Government to enable that to happen. That would be a good investment.
My speech to the Massey conference can be found here.
There’s more at TVNZ and here.
Quake recovery exposes lack of strategy
A week ago I held a meeting for business owners in my local suburbs of Sydenham and Beckenham with representatives from the Christchurch City Council. Five months after the first earthquake, many of those business owners are frustrated over the lack of progress and the absence of a strategy from Council and Government giving any direction for the recovery.Worse than that, in the five months since the earthquake, the local members of parliament and even city councillors have never been briefed by the Mayor or Chief Executive, and getting accurate and timely information from council officers has proved almost impossible. That is despite the Labour MPs and me working tirelessly with residents and business owners throughout. Ironically, my office was phoned recently on a Friday afternoon to tell us that such a meeting was being held this month - just hours before
The Press published a report quoting the Mayor as saying he had scheduled such a meeting.
It is difficult for those outside Christchurch to comprehend the problems the city still faces. Despite the Mayor intimating that life has returned to normal and it is ‘business as usual’, Colombo Street in Sydenham still has cordons out onto the roadway restricting access and rubble remains lying on the street in many places. Across the road from my electorate office, an entire block of shops remain cordoned off and no-one appears to have any idea about when decisions will be made to repair or demolish the buildings, and no one seems to take responsibility or show leadership.
I told the Council officials that, at no time in my public life, have I seen such a lack of leadership and failure to take responsibility. Without leadership, those shops may still be there in five years’ time with still no one the wiser about their fate.
If there has been a positive in the last few weeks, it has been first-term city councillor Tim Carter calling on the Council to establish an earthquake committee. Similarly, The Press now appears to be running a campaign to get some sort of leadership, and these things, along with our pushing, appears to have prompted some action.
Tribute to Tom Newnham
Just before Christmas I had the privilege of speaking at the funeral of Tom Newnham. Tom is perhaps best known for his opposition to racism and for promoting racial and economic justice on the national and international stage, he was a leader of CARE, the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality, and one of New Zealand’s leading anti-Springbok tour activists.Tom was a one-off human being. He attacked institutional racism in New Zealand and around the world with an intellectual ferocity without equal. He spoke fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. As a prominent educationalist, he wasn’t easy on himself and even took some personal blame as a curriculum advisor for the remarkable lack of knowledge which most New Zealanders have of the history of their own country.
Tom was also an integral part of the story of Centre-Left politics, being involved in the Labour Party in Mt Eden, the NewLabour Party and the Alliance following the Rogernomics revolution. I was never more proud then when Tom wrote to tell me he was joining the fight back against Rogernomics.
For Tom, social justice was a way of life, a movement continually to be sought and perfected, but he was never locked in to a narrow ideology. Not for him the name calling and character assassination so common to many of his opponents, he always recognised the potential for change in an adversary and the possibility of winning over an opponent.
Tom was a great new Zealanders and a unique human being.
NZ Superannuation, a manufactured crisis?
If ever an opportunity was lost, it was the failure of the Government’s Savings Working Group (SWG) to look at the issue of superannuation, particularly given Retirement Commissioner, Dianne Crossan’s recent report that the New ZealandSuperannuation (NZS) is unaffordable in the long term. She advocates lifting the age of entitlement from 2020, introducing a transitional means-tested benefit for 65 year-olds and effectively reducing the level of NZS against the average wage.
One of Crossan’s presumptions is that it is solely young taxpayers who fund NZS and that, as the population gets older, there will be fewer working young people paying tax to maintain an increasing number of superannuitants. That argument overlooks that many superannuitants still work and pay income tax, and neglects to take into account that superannuation itself is taxable or that every time superannuitants spend money, 15 per cent is taken as GST.
Another flaw in the argument that NZS is unsustainable is the assumption that it is paid only from taxpayer income, whereas in fact it is funded from the consolidated fund or general pool of government revenue. Similarly, it assumes that the economy will not grow at anything other than current levels, thus we will have to slice the economic cake more thinly to be able to afford to pay for NZS. There is no consideration of the potential for economic growth.
Against Crossan’s assertions, it could be argued that tax reform could ensure a decent standard of living for superannuitants?
What if National’s recent cut tax rates were reversed, allowing the $4 billion a year to be invested in the NZS fund? Surely that would go a considerable way to ensuring its sustainability.
Making it more difficult to qualify for NZS either by reducing the entitlement or raising the age of eligibility lacks both imagination and creativity, and I will be raising these issues this year to ensure that the real value of NZS is not diminished by a manufactured crisis.
Asset Sales: Debate on the PM's Statement
08/02/11 18:48 Filed in: Speeches
Mr Speaker,
The headline on the front page of the Christchurch Press on Saturday reads: “Does this look like the road to recovery?”
The obvious answer – 5 months after the earthquake is a resounding NO. In my electorate office area of Selwyn Village, Spreydon – every single business on the opposite side of the road has left their premises – nothing has changed or been done since Sept. 4 and the only answer we get to our urgent enquiries is that the Council is talking to the owner! Every single business in our village is now at risk – almost no parking, cordons everywhere and no action.
FAST FORWARD to NEW ZEALAND’S Economic Recovery and how do John Key’s words about an ‘aspirational government’ and heroic television appearances pledging progress and prosperity match up with the same kind of rhetoric we saw night after night on television at the time of the earthquake.
Again – the obvious answer is “about the same”.
Lots of hype – not enough action.
Here are the problems that the Prime Minister should have talked about this afternoon:
After more than two years of his government, economic growth has stopped.
Any so-called recovery has stalled.
Unemployment is going UP, not DOWN.
Jobs are being lost, not created.
The cost of living is increasing, but incomes aren’t. Keeping pace – particularly for low-middle income New Zealanders.
What is the prime minister’s strategy to tackle those problems?
He doesn’t have one.
He has had all summer, and he comes down to this House with a plan to muddle through - a shopping list that won’t create jobs, won’t lift incomes, and won’t help.
His economic policy consists of assets sales.
That is not an economic policy: It is a surrender of the sovereignty of New Zealand.
Not one new job will be created by selling off the people’s power companies.
But every one of us will be paying higher power bills to the new overseas owners.
We know this because we’ve seen it all before.
John Key wasn’t in New Zealand for most of the eighties and nineties.
But I was here, and I heard all the arguments for asset sales last time around.
The arguments for assets sales were fatally flawed then, and they are fatally flawed now.
I walked out of the then government caucus because assets sales were a bad idea, and the idea hasn’t got any better.
And that’s why we had to buy assets back.
We had to buy back the rail system because National privatised and allowed it to be wrecked.
We had to buy back Air NZ because the private owners bankrupted it.
We had to start a new bank because the foreign owners of our entire banking industry sucked New Zealand dry: They closed 1300 branches, they increased fees and their own profits, shipped from overseas at the rate of $1306 million a year and we had to do something about it.
Why would selling our power companies be any different?
Why would the new foreign owners suddenly discover the virtue of charity over shareholder profit?
Why would the assets not fall into foreign ownership, just like the last lot that were going to be kept for ‘kiwi mums and dads?’
I am here to bear witness that the same mistakes are being proposed as were made last time a government paid for tax cuts by selling off public assets.
The same tired old lines from the past are being trotted out, and the same promises that it will be different this time.
The only thing that has restrained the rapaciousness of the power companies in the last ten years has been the threat of the government changing the composition of their boards.
When the power companies are sold and the boards are free to do what they want, even, worse, what they have to do by law - look after the interests of their minority shareholders, what will protect householders who have to keep paying higher costs for essential electricity.
The National Party says selling assets will pay down debt.
That is exactly what was said in the eighties by Roger Douglas.
It’s what was said in the nineties by the National Government.
And what happened?
After selling nineteen billion dollars’ worth of assets - we had more debt as a country than when we started. Selling the family silver.
Selling assets increases debt, it doesn’t reduce debt.
There is something outrageous about giving tax cuts that cost $43 million a week for just the top ten per cent of earners - and then claiming we have a debt problem because we are borrowing too much.
What we will end up with is more profits going overseas.
And that will mean our overseas debt will get worse.
Every time we turn on a light, the overseas owners will harvest a profit.
Every time a business starts a machine, the overseas owners will get a cheque from us.
A river in New Zealand, dammed by New Zealand for generations, supplies power along a transmission network built and maintained by New Zealanders, to a household in New Zealand. And somehow, someone in another country will clip the ticket on that transaction.
That is what privatisation means.
Mr Key says the assets will be kept in New Zealand hands.
But that is what they said about Contact Energy, the Bank of NZ, Postbank, Air NZ, NZ Rail and practically every other strategic asset which was privatised.
Who owns them now? Not the Kiwi Mums and Dads. The majority interests (apart from those the last Labour-led government bought back) are mainly held in Australia.
Who owns the New Zealand forests that National sold in the nineties, claiming it would pay off all the debt?
If we had kept those forests, the government could today be planting them, providing thousands of jobs, earning exports and growing New Zealand.
But who did they sell them to?
The Chinese Government!
The National Party has never explained why the New Zealand government can’t run a forest, but the Communist Chinese government can – of course, in the end they couldn’t and didn’t.
They said then that transaction would pay off the debt - and now they say we have to sell more to pay off the debt.
This is National’s entire economic programme.
What else have they got in mind to grow and create jobs? Nothing.
After last year’s budget, I made a few predictions in this House about what would happen.
Let’s look at record:
I said the average New Zealander would not be better off, because if people are not on a high income, this government is not going to help.
What happened? People on average or below incomes (the majority of New Zealanders), are worse off now than they were a year ago.
I said that unemployment would be higher - what happened?
Unemployment today is higher than when National took office.
It is higher than it was last December.
And the government has stopped even pretending it has any idea where new jobs will come from – what has happened to Mr Key’s bike trail and the thousands of jobs that were supposed to come from it.
And nothing the prime minister said today will increase exports.
Nothing he said today will boost investment in research and development and help us increase productivity.
Last year I said the gap between rich and poor would increase.
That’s not rocket science - when you give a thousand dollars a week tax cut to the prime minister, but someone on the average wage ends up worse off after price rises - then the gap between the very top and everyone else widens.
I said more kids would grow up in poverty.
What’s happened in McGechan Close, where John Key went in 2008 to pretend he is compassionate about children in poverty?
What has happened is that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
The people of McGechan Close are worse off. Much worse off.
The young girl he took to Waitangi is now in CYFs care.
What was announced today that would make her better off? Nothing.
Here’s what a respected Professor of Epidemiology in New Zealand said last year:
“In New Zealand, social injustice is killing and maiming our children on a grand scale.”
We top the scales for OECD rates of whooping cough, rheumatic fever, pneumonia and other diseases in children.
28% of our children still live in poverty.
How many have more hope this afternoon than they had this morning?
None.
What do they have instead of more hope?
They have more unemployment.
More GST.
More price rises.
Higher rents.
And a government that doesn’t care about anyone except itself and the top 10% of income earners in New Zealand.
The headline on the front page of the Christchurch Press on Saturday reads: “Does this look like the road to recovery?”
The obvious answer – 5 months after the earthquake is a resounding NO. In my electorate office area of Selwyn Village, Spreydon – every single business on the opposite side of the road has left their premises – nothing has changed or been done since Sept. 4 and the only answer we get to our urgent enquiries is that the Council is talking to the owner! Every single business in our village is now at risk – almost no parking, cordons everywhere and no action.
FAST FORWARD to NEW ZEALAND’S Economic Recovery and how do John Key’s words about an ‘aspirational government’ and heroic television appearances pledging progress and prosperity match up with the same kind of rhetoric we saw night after night on television at the time of the earthquake.
Again – the obvious answer is “about the same”.
Lots of hype – not enough action.
Here are the problems that the Prime Minister should have talked about this afternoon:
After more than two years of his government, economic growth has stopped.
Any so-called recovery has stalled.
Unemployment is going UP, not DOWN.
Jobs are being lost, not created.
The cost of living is increasing, but incomes aren’t. Keeping pace – particularly for low-middle income New Zealanders.
What is the prime minister’s strategy to tackle those problems?
He doesn’t have one.
He has had all summer, and he comes down to this House with a plan to muddle through - a shopping list that won’t create jobs, won’t lift incomes, and won’t help.
His economic policy consists of assets sales.
That is not an economic policy: It is a surrender of the sovereignty of New Zealand.
Not one new job will be created by selling off the people’s power companies.
But every one of us will be paying higher power bills to the new overseas owners.
We know this because we’ve seen it all before.
John Key wasn’t in New Zealand for most of the eighties and nineties.
But I was here, and I heard all the arguments for asset sales last time around.
The arguments for assets sales were fatally flawed then, and they are fatally flawed now.
I walked out of the then government caucus because assets sales were a bad idea, and the idea hasn’t got any better.
And that’s why we had to buy assets back.
We had to buy back the rail system because National privatised and allowed it to be wrecked.
We had to buy back Air NZ because the private owners bankrupted it.
We had to start a new bank because the foreign owners of our entire banking industry sucked New Zealand dry: They closed 1300 branches, they increased fees and their own profits, shipped from overseas at the rate of $1306 million a year and we had to do something about it.
Why would selling our power companies be any different?
Why would the new foreign owners suddenly discover the virtue of charity over shareholder profit?
Why would the assets not fall into foreign ownership, just like the last lot that were going to be kept for ‘kiwi mums and dads?’
I am here to bear witness that the same mistakes are being proposed as were made last time a government paid for tax cuts by selling off public assets.
The same tired old lines from the past are being trotted out, and the same promises that it will be different this time.
The only thing that has restrained the rapaciousness of the power companies in the last ten years has been the threat of the government changing the composition of their boards.
When the power companies are sold and the boards are free to do what they want, even, worse, what they have to do by law - look after the interests of their minority shareholders, what will protect householders who have to keep paying higher costs for essential electricity.
The National Party says selling assets will pay down debt.
That is exactly what was said in the eighties by Roger Douglas.
It’s what was said in the nineties by the National Government.
And what happened?
After selling nineteen billion dollars’ worth of assets - we had more debt as a country than when we started. Selling the family silver.
Selling assets increases debt, it doesn’t reduce debt.
There is something outrageous about giving tax cuts that cost $43 million a week for just the top ten per cent of earners - and then claiming we have a debt problem because we are borrowing too much.
What we will end up with is more profits going overseas.
And that will mean our overseas debt will get worse.
Every time we turn on a light, the overseas owners will harvest a profit.
Every time a business starts a machine, the overseas owners will get a cheque from us.
A river in New Zealand, dammed by New Zealand for generations, supplies power along a transmission network built and maintained by New Zealanders, to a household in New Zealand. And somehow, someone in another country will clip the ticket on that transaction.
That is what privatisation means.
Mr Key says the assets will be kept in New Zealand hands.
But that is what they said about Contact Energy, the Bank of NZ, Postbank, Air NZ, NZ Rail and practically every other strategic asset which was privatised.
Who owns them now? Not the Kiwi Mums and Dads. The majority interests (apart from those the last Labour-led government bought back) are mainly held in Australia.
Who owns the New Zealand forests that National sold in the nineties, claiming it would pay off all the debt?
If we had kept those forests, the government could today be planting them, providing thousands of jobs, earning exports and growing New Zealand.
But who did they sell them to?
The Chinese Government!
The National Party has never explained why the New Zealand government can’t run a forest, but the Communist Chinese government can – of course, in the end they couldn’t and didn’t.
They said then that transaction would pay off the debt - and now they say we have to sell more to pay off the debt.
This is National’s entire economic programme.
What else have they got in mind to grow and create jobs? Nothing.
After last year’s budget, I made a few predictions in this House about what would happen.
Let’s look at record:
I said the average New Zealander would not be better off, because if people are not on a high income, this government is not going to help.
What happened? People on average or below incomes (the majority of New Zealanders), are worse off now than they were a year ago.
I said that unemployment would be higher - what happened?
Unemployment today is higher than when National took office.
It is higher than it was last December.
And the government has stopped even pretending it has any idea where new jobs will come from – what has happened to Mr Key’s bike trail and the thousands of jobs that were supposed to come from it.
And nothing the prime minister said today will increase exports.
Nothing he said today will boost investment in research and development and help us increase productivity.
Last year I said the gap between rich and poor would increase.
That’s not rocket science - when you give a thousand dollars a week tax cut to the prime minister, but someone on the average wage ends up worse off after price rises - then the gap between the very top and everyone else widens.
I said more kids would grow up in poverty.
What’s happened in McGechan Close, where John Key went in 2008 to pretend he is compassionate about children in poverty?
What has happened is that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
The people of McGechan Close are worse off. Much worse off.
The young girl he took to Waitangi is now in CYFs care.
What was announced today that would make her better off? Nothing.
Here’s what a respected Professor of Epidemiology in New Zealand said last year:
“In New Zealand, social injustice is killing and maiming our children on a grand scale.”
We top the scales for OECD rates of whooping cough, rheumatic fever, pneumonia and other diseases in children.
28% of our children still live in poverty.
How many have more hope this afternoon than they had this morning?
None.
What do they have instead of more hope?
They have more unemployment.
More GST.
More price rises.
Higher rents.
And a government that doesn’t care about anyone except itself and the top 10% of income earners in New Zealand.
Lots of hype, not enough action
08/02/11 18:47 Filed in: News Releases
The lack of action on recovery for Christchurch from last September’s earthquake matches the National Government’s lack of action on economic growth, jobs and the cost of living, Wigram MP Jim Anderton told parliament today in debate over the Prime Minister’s Statement.
He warned that the National Party’s planned asset sales would not create any jobs, but would send more profits overseas.
“Does this look like the road to recovery? Five months after the earthquake every business on the opposite side of the road from my electorate office has left their premises. Nothing has changed or been done since September 4,” Jim Anderton said.
“Fast Forward to New Zealand’s economic recovery: After more than two years of his government, economic growth has stopped. Unemployment is going up, not down. Jobs are being lost not created, the cost of living is increasing but incomes aren’t.
“What is the prime minister’s strategy to tackle those problems? He doesn’t have one.”
Jim Anderton said asset sales are not an economic policy.
“It is a surrender of the sovereignty of New Zealand. Not one job will be created by selling off the people’s power companies. But every one of us will be paying higher power bills to overseas owners. And that will mean our overseas debt will get worse.
“Every time we turn on a light, the overseas owners will harvest a profit. Every time a business starts a machine, the overseas owners will get a cheque from us. A river in New Zealand, dammed by New Zealand for generations, supplies power along a transmission network built and maintained by New Zealanders, to a household in New Zealand. And somehow, someone in another country will clip the ticket on that transaction. That is what privatisation means.
“Mr Key says the assets will be kept in New Zealand hands. But that is what they said about Contact Energy. The Bank of New Zealand, Postbank, Air New Zealand, NZ Rail and practically every strategic asset which was privatised - who owns them now? Apart from those the last Labour-led Government bought back, they are mainly held in Australia,” Jim Anderton said.
He warned that the National Party’s planned asset sales would not create any jobs, but would send more profits overseas.
“Does this look like the road to recovery? Five months after the earthquake every business on the opposite side of the road from my electorate office has left their premises. Nothing has changed or been done since September 4,” Jim Anderton said.
“Fast Forward to New Zealand’s economic recovery: After more than two years of his government, economic growth has stopped. Unemployment is going up, not down. Jobs are being lost not created, the cost of living is increasing but incomes aren’t.
“What is the prime minister’s strategy to tackle those problems? He doesn’t have one.”
Jim Anderton said asset sales are not an economic policy.
“It is a surrender of the sovereignty of New Zealand. Not one job will be created by selling off the people’s power companies. But every one of us will be paying higher power bills to overseas owners. And that will mean our overseas debt will get worse.
“Every time we turn on a light, the overseas owners will harvest a profit. Every time a business starts a machine, the overseas owners will get a cheque from us. A river in New Zealand, dammed by New Zealand for generations, supplies power along a transmission network built and maintained by New Zealanders, to a household in New Zealand. And somehow, someone in another country will clip the ticket on that transaction. That is what privatisation means.
“Mr Key says the assets will be kept in New Zealand hands. But that is what they said about Contact Energy. The Bank of New Zealand, Postbank, Air New Zealand, NZ Rail and practically every strategic asset which was privatised - who owns them now? Apart from those the last Labour-led Government bought back, they are mainly held in Australia,” Jim Anderton said.
Government must hold review on Insurance Industry’s failure to payout Canterbury businesses
19/12/10 10:17 Filed in: News Releases
Today Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton called on the government to hold an urgent review of the insurance industry in light of ongoing failures to pay out hard-hit Canterbury business owners.
“The government must hold international insurance underwriters accountable for refusing to pay out on legitimate business disruption claims caused by the Canterbury Earthquake,” says Anderton.
“It has become apparent that scores of small businesses, who thought they were adequately covered, have been lulled into a false sense of security by their insurance company. Perfectly reasonable claims are not being met, despite assurances from brokers after the event of the earthquake.
“It seems not even the brokers understand the full extent of what these policy claims purport to do. New Zealanders have to remember that it is not the insurance companies based here that are turning down legitimate claims, but International underwriters in London, Zurich and New York who are making these judgment calls.
“In the light of the earthquake being one of the most expensive natural disasters in the world for the insurance industry, it is vital that the global insurance industry looks at its practices and explains how these policies are meant to benefit its clientele in the future.
“If ever there was a time for reviewing the ‘business disruption’ insurance claims issue, it is now, but some in the industry are relying on confusing policy language and jargon to legally avoid making payouts.
“There is an urgent obligation here. Thousands of business owners have in good faith been individually paying out tens of thousands of dollars for years to give themselves a sense of security for loss of income as a result of a disaster like an earthquake, only to find that underwriters in the insurance industry are now wriggling out of their responsibilities.
“I urge the government to urgently take up this review and make the international heads of the insurance industry focus on the Canterbury Earthquake as a case study to improve future practices,” says Jim Anderton.
“The government must hold international insurance underwriters accountable for refusing to pay out on legitimate business disruption claims caused by the Canterbury Earthquake,” says Anderton.
“It has become apparent that scores of small businesses, who thought they were adequately covered, have been lulled into a false sense of security by their insurance company. Perfectly reasonable claims are not being met, despite assurances from brokers after the event of the earthquake.
“It seems not even the brokers understand the full extent of what these policy claims purport to do. New Zealanders have to remember that it is not the insurance companies based here that are turning down legitimate claims, but International underwriters in London, Zurich and New York who are making these judgment calls.
“In the light of the earthquake being one of the most expensive natural disasters in the world for the insurance industry, it is vital that the global insurance industry looks at its practices and explains how these policies are meant to benefit its clientele in the future.
“If ever there was a time for reviewing the ‘business disruption’ insurance claims issue, it is now, but some in the industry are relying on confusing policy language and jargon to legally avoid making payouts.
“There is an urgent obligation here. Thousands of business owners have in good faith been individually paying out tens of thousands of dollars for years to give themselves a sense of security for loss of income as a result of a disaster like an earthquake, only to find that underwriters in the insurance industry are now wriggling out of their responsibilities.
“I urge the government to urgently take up this review and make the international heads of the insurance industry focus on the Canterbury Earthquake as a case study to improve future practices,” says Jim Anderton.
Jim's E-News, December 2010
20/12/10 13:11 Filed in: News Releases
Season’s Greetings
With just a couple of weeks until Christmas, it is time to wish you all the very best for the holiday and festive season. It has been a hectic year and in many respects a tumultuous one given the Christchurch earthquakes and the Christchurch Mayoral election. In recent weeks the Pike River Mine tragedy has occupied the thoughts of a nation.
Next year will be election year and I am predicting that the Government will go to the polls early. We need to be prepared early as populist leader John Key will not want to risk leaving an election until after the Rugby World Cup on the off-chance (unlikely I hope) that the All Blacks will again falter.
While the Government’s popularity seems high at the moment, it will take just a small swing to see a change in government. Roy Morgan polls over the last year show National and its support parties tracking downwards, with the latest one showing its support at 55.5%, down from a high of 61.5% in February. Meanwhile, Labour and its support parties have slowly but steadily tracked upwards, with their support now at 44.5%, compared to 41.61% at the time of the 2008 General Election.
All that is required is a swing of slightly more than 5% from National and its support parties to Labour, and so I am urging you to make your New Year’s resolution one that you will get out and campaign for a Labour victory.
As for me, it will be the first time in more than 27 years that I will not be a candidate, and so I will be throwing my support firmly behind Labour’s Megan Woods in my current seat of Wigram.
Once again, I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and New Year and hope that 2011 is a good and prosperous one for you and your family.
The Pike River mining tragedy
Like all New Zealanders, I watched in horror as events unfolded at the Pike River Mine in November and was deeply saddened at the loss of 29 lives. That it has been a traumatic time for New Zealand and the West Coast in particular is something of an understatement, and my sympathies go to the families and communities affected by this tragic event.
As the various inquiries get underway into the cause of this disaster, we must now take responsibility for ensuring that such a tragedy does not happen again. We must refuse to accept that the deaths are a necessary cost of mining. All of us, from mine operators to government and parliament, must take steps to ensure that the safety of all miners is paramount.
Pike River is a modern state-of-the-art mine with presumably all the latest safety technology, but that didn’t save the lives of the 29 men. The new mine is on the same coal seam as the one in Brunner, where 65 men were killed by choking gas in 1896, and this event echoed the Strongman mine explosion which killed 19 miners in 1967.
How many more deaths must we experience in this industry before we ask some very serious questions about the viability of this type of mine?
It will be the best possible tribute to those who died to carefully examine the most comprehensive safety means possible before we put any more miners in harm’s way. Quite simply, we must make mining conditions safer.
For that reason I support the call for former ACC Chair Ross Wilson to be appointed to the Royal Commission investigating the Pike River tragedy. As a previous NZCTU President, Ross is well-respected, capable and has championed workplace safety over many years.
His presence would assure workers and their families about the integrity of the investigation.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge Superintendent Gary Knowles, who led the Police effort, and Pike River Chief Executive Peter Whittall. Both men showed calm, intelligent leadership and great strength at such a difficult time. And similarly, no praise is high enough for all of those who were and still are part of the plans to recover the bodies of their mining colleagues.
The speech can be found here.
Reserve Bank statement shows unaffordability of cut in top tax rate
It’s National’s fault.
The cuts in the top tax rate from 39 cents down to 33 cents since the 2008 election are helping to put New Zealand’s recovery on hold.
The Reserve Bank has identified “elimination of New Zealand’s fiscal deficit” as a factor that’s adding pressure to interest rates and keeping the dollar high.
The fiscal deficit is caused because the government reduced the top tax rate. 42% of the tax cuts since the 2008 election went to the top ten per cent of income earners. If the government had only pushed out the threshold at which the highest tax rate applies, and not cut the top tax rate from 39 cents to 33 cents, most of the fiscal deficit would not exist.
Because of the irresponsible cut in the top rate, interest rates are higher and the dollar is higher - putting pressure on our exporters and making it cheaper for foreigners to come in and buy up New Zealand.
This is National’s idea of economic management: The recovery has stalled. Business investment is ‘below average.’ Households are not spending. Homes aren’t selling. House prices are falling. Unemployment is higher than it was when National took office and wages have stalled.
The Reserve Bank today made clear that this is all National’s fault. But will the Prime Minister accept that the buck stops with him? Don’t count on it!
Canterbury businesses face tough times
I recently addressed a meeting of small business owners in Christchurch whose businesses are still significantly affected by the Canterbury earthquakes. Now that the quakes do not fill our television screens every night and many people get back to life as normal, many businesses remain on the brink of failure and no-one seems to care.
Small business depends on cash flow and there seems little appreciation from those in authority of the effect when a business is open, but where access is blocked by rubble and cordons, and where the damaged surroundings are such an eyesore that customers head to the sanctuary of shopping malls. Many of these businesses have suffered a loss of cash flow of up to 60% and more.
The Council seems to have abdicated any leadership on the issue. Not once has the Mayor briefed me or the local Labour members of parliament about earthquake recovery plans and arrangements, and I understand that he has not even formally briefed his own councillors.
I have been working with a number of local business owners and recently arranged to have 100 tonnes of rubble cleared from the streets of Sydenham and Beckenham, for a number of cordons to be removed or reduced, and for Colombo Street to be opened again to two-way traffic.
The Government announced last week that it is making available approximately $600,000 to assist small businesses for such things as courses in managing cash-flow. As one owner at the meeting said, I have been in business for 28 years and I know all I need about cash flow. What I need is some cash to flow.
Sour grapes: Yeah Right
Political sour grapes is how Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has described my call for heads to roll over the Council’s decision to buy at a cost of $17 million, a number of properties from the failed and now bankrupted property developer David Henderson. But it is hardly a case of sour grapes as Mr Parker well knows.
In a deal which was controversial and which I criticised at the time, the Council paid top prices for the properties from a clearly cash-strapped Henderson. The deal was one whereby Henderson had an option to buy the properties back, and so it looked like a bailout rather than a smart business arrangement.
Since the purchase in 2008, the Council (meaning ratepayers) has paid almost $600,000 annually in interest on the loans, while watching the value of the properties slump. It was utterly predictable that Henderson would not be able to buy back the properties, and that is precisely what has happened.
As a result, the Council is stuck with overpriced and, in cases, derelict properties, with ratepayers picking up the interest costs. It was barmy then, it remains barmy and the most ridiculous expenditure of public money I have ever heard of - and among the heads I believe should roll is that of the Council CEO, Tony Marryatt, who must have been responsible for the advice to purchase under such unacceptable conditions.
Ironically, Mr Henderson was reported last week on National radio as saying that no-one in their right mind would buy inner city properties in Christchurch at the moment - which raises the obvious question of just how he managed to convince the Christchurch City Council to do just that.
Liquor industry ad an ‘Orwellian’ history lesson
Anyone who wants evidence of just how far the liquor industry will go to promote its product need look no further that the new DB Export advertising campaign as it attempts to rewrite New Zealand history in a way that would even astound ‘1984’ author, George Orwell.
The ad is set in 1958 around the time of the so-called ‘Black Budget’ of Labour’s Finance Minister, Arnold Nordmeyer. It paints Nordmeyer as a tight-fisted old bore who taxed beer to the extent that working men could no longer afford to drink. By contrast, brewer Moreton Coutts, the creator of DB export, is portrayed as giving back these working class drinkers not only their sacred turf of public bars, but also export quality beer at affordable prices.
In what is a distortion of epic proportion, the ad goes on to show archive footage of men rioting, ostensibly over the price of beer, when in fact the footage is from the 1951 waterfront lockout.
The truth is, that in the 1958 Budget, Nordmeyer raised excise on beer, spirits, cigarettes and petroleum as a part of a package to meet a balance of payments crisis that had been caused by the previous National government. Nordmeyer was putting the interests of New Zealand before short term political gain and was not trying to stop the working man’s drink after work. Nordmeyer was also, of course, the architect of New Zealand’s Public Health Scheme, the envy of most countries at the time of its introduction.
Pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into patently dishonest advertising campaigns like this shows once again the level of cynicism shown by the liquor industry towards New Zealanders and the social problems their industry produces. In my view, the creators of this ad would have a place in George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth where lies are truth and truth is lies
My full press release can be found here.
The nine-point plan to social harm
In Parliament last month, I set out a nine-point plan on how a major social problem could be created in New Zealand with the active support of this government.
· It starts with legalising a drug known to be of high risk to public health, commercialising that drug, and then selling it in supermarkets and other easily accessible places.
· From there you make it legal to deal in the drug, particularly by glamorising its use through marketing, and then go on to bestow its manufacturers and dealers with honours and make them socially acceptable.
· The icing on the cake could be to link the drug to major sporting teams and events, and for government to fund and Prime Minister to champion venues for taking this particular drug.
· The Automobile Association could then support driving under that drug’s influence.
This might sound extreme, but the Government’s response to the Law Commission’s proposals on alcohol allows all of those things. The Commission describes alcohol as a legalised drug and proposes a new policy framework that it says amounts to a major shift in the regulation of alcohol. The Commission’s recommendations include increasing excise tax on alcohol, banning off-licence sales after 10.00pm, refusing entry to bars and night clubs after 2.00am and increasing the drinking age.
But what has been the Government’s response?
The Commission anticipated some opposition to its recommendations and this is exactly what has happened, to a degree that even I had not anticipated. In response to the report, the Government has done nothing whatsoever to address the problems created by alcohol or to fundamentally change the drinking culture in New Zealand.
The mood of the country towards alcohol abuse is changing, but that change is being led by the public and the media, not the Government. For example, there is 70% support to lower the drink-driving, blood-alcohol limit, yet the Government needs ‘more research’ before it will act. Why?
This Government, normally a slave to the polls, is out of step with the majority of New Zealanders and, until it changes, New Zealand’s record of deaths and injuries on our roads will remain among the worst in the world.
My speech on ‘the plan’ can be found here.
Will National decline liquor money?
I will be scrutinising closely donations from the liquor industry after National MPs objected to claims that their party takes industry money. In Parliament recently I asked National Party members to tell us, how much money is being put into the National Party’s ‘Victory Fund’ by the liquor industry?
For some reason they objected and wanted the question ruled out of order, claiming that it suggested they were influenced by liquor industry donations.
Attempting to have the question ruled out of order means that if it turns out that the Nats have accepted liquor industry donations and then pass pro-liquor laws, there is a potential breach of privilege issue.
If the Nats don’t want to be criticised for taking liquor industry money then they should simply publicly refuse to accept donations from that industry. Even anonymous donations have a habit of becoming public, so I look forward to National refusing any money from vested liquor interests – but I am not holding my breath.
Carole’s birthday
To end this newsletter on a celebratory note, I am delighted to report that we held a very successful 70th birthday brunch for my wife Carole during November. Held at the Clearwater Resort near Christchurch, around 80 friends, family and colleagues gathered to enjoy the occasion.
To me, a real highlight was being able to have so many of Carole’s family come from around New Zealand, a surprise to her as most had pretended they weren’t able to be there. And what a delight it was to hear so many nice speeches and comments about Carole from family members in particular.
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
With just a couple of weeks until Christmas, it is time to wish you all the very best for the holiday and festive season. It has been a hectic year and in many respects a tumultuous one given the Christchurch earthquakes and the Christchurch Mayoral election. In recent weeks the Pike River Mine tragedy has occupied the thoughts of a nation.
Next year will be election year and I am predicting that the Government will go to the polls early. We need to be prepared early as populist leader John Key will not want to risk leaving an election until after the Rugby World Cup on the off-chance (unlikely I hope) that the All Blacks will again falter.
While the Government’s popularity seems high at the moment, it will take just a small swing to see a change in government. Roy Morgan polls over the last year show National and its support parties tracking downwards, with the latest one showing its support at 55.5%, down from a high of 61.5% in February. Meanwhile, Labour and its support parties have slowly but steadily tracked upwards, with their support now at 44.5%, compared to 41.61% at the time of the 2008 General Election.
All that is required is a swing of slightly more than 5% from National and its support parties to Labour, and so I am urging you to make your New Year’s resolution one that you will get out and campaign for a Labour victory.
As for me, it will be the first time in more than 27 years that I will not be a candidate, and so I will be throwing my support firmly behind Labour’s Megan Woods in my current seat of Wigram.
Once again, I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and New Year and hope that 2011 is a good and prosperous one for you and your family.
The Pike River mining tragedy
Like all New Zealanders, I watched in horror as events unfolded at the Pike River Mine in November and was deeply saddened at the loss of 29 lives. That it has been a traumatic time for New Zealand and the West Coast in particular is something of an understatement, and my sympathies go to the families and communities affected by this tragic event.
As the various inquiries get underway into the cause of this disaster, we must now take responsibility for ensuring that such a tragedy does not happen again. We must refuse to accept that the deaths are a necessary cost of mining. All of us, from mine operators to government and parliament, must take steps to ensure that the safety of all miners is paramount.
Pike River is a modern state-of-the-art mine with presumably all the latest safety technology, but that didn’t save the lives of the 29 men. The new mine is on the same coal seam as the one in Brunner, where 65 men were killed by choking gas in 1896, and this event echoed the Strongman mine explosion which killed 19 miners in 1967.
How many more deaths must we experience in this industry before we ask some very serious questions about the viability of this type of mine?
It will be the best possible tribute to those who died to carefully examine the most comprehensive safety means possible before we put any more miners in harm’s way. Quite simply, we must make mining conditions safer.
For that reason I support the call for former ACC Chair Ross Wilson to be appointed to the Royal Commission investigating the Pike River tragedy. As a previous NZCTU President, Ross is well-respected, capable and has championed workplace safety over many years.
His presence would assure workers and their families about the integrity of the investigation.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge Superintendent Gary Knowles, who led the Police effort, and Pike River Chief Executive Peter Whittall. Both men showed calm, intelligent leadership and great strength at such a difficult time. And similarly, no praise is high enough for all of those who were and still are part of the plans to recover the bodies of their mining colleagues.
The speech can be found here.
Reserve Bank statement shows unaffordability of cut in top tax rate
It’s National’s fault.
The cuts in the top tax rate from 39 cents down to 33 cents since the 2008 election are helping to put New Zealand’s recovery on hold.
The Reserve Bank has identified “elimination of New Zealand’s fiscal deficit” as a factor that’s adding pressure to interest rates and keeping the dollar high.
The fiscal deficit is caused because the government reduced the top tax rate. 42% of the tax cuts since the 2008 election went to the top ten per cent of income earners. If the government had only pushed out the threshold at which the highest tax rate applies, and not cut the top tax rate from 39 cents to 33 cents, most of the fiscal deficit would not exist.
Because of the irresponsible cut in the top rate, interest rates are higher and the dollar is higher - putting pressure on our exporters and making it cheaper for foreigners to come in and buy up New Zealand.
This is National’s idea of economic management: The recovery has stalled. Business investment is ‘below average.’ Households are not spending. Homes aren’t selling. House prices are falling. Unemployment is higher than it was when National took office and wages have stalled.
The Reserve Bank today made clear that this is all National’s fault. But will the Prime Minister accept that the buck stops with him? Don’t count on it!
Canterbury businesses face tough times
I recently addressed a meeting of small business owners in Christchurch whose businesses are still significantly affected by the Canterbury earthquakes. Now that the quakes do not fill our television screens every night and many people get back to life as normal, many businesses remain on the brink of failure and no-one seems to care.
Small business depends on cash flow and there seems little appreciation from those in authority of the effect when a business is open, but where access is blocked by rubble and cordons, and where the damaged surroundings are such an eyesore that customers head to the sanctuary of shopping malls. Many of these businesses have suffered a loss of cash flow of up to 60% and more.
The Council seems to have abdicated any leadership on the issue. Not once has the Mayor briefed me or the local Labour members of parliament about earthquake recovery plans and arrangements, and I understand that he has not even formally briefed his own councillors.
I have been working with a number of local business owners and recently arranged to have 100 tonnes of rubble cleared from the streets of Sydenham and Beckenham, for a number of cordons to be removed or reduced, and for Colombo Street to be opened again to two-way traffic.
The Government announced last week that it is making available approximately $600,000 to assist small businesses for such things as courses in managing cash-flow. As one owner at the meeting said, I have been in business for 28 years and I know all I need about cash flow. What I need is some cash to flow.
Sour grapes: Yeah Right
Political sour grapes is how Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has described my call for heads to roll over the Council’s decision to buy at a cost of $17 million, a number of properties from the failed and now bankrupted property developer David Henderson. But it is hardly a case of sour grapes as Mr Parker well knows.
In a deal which was controversial and which I criticised at the time, the Council paid top prices for the properties from a clearly cash-strapped Henderson. The deal was one whereby Henderson had an option to buy the properties back, and so it looked like a bailout rather than a smart business arrangement.
Since the purchase in 2008, the Council (meaning ratepayers) has paid almost $600,000 annually in interest on the loans, while watching the value of the properties slump. It was utterly predictable that Henderson would not be able to buy back the properties, and that is precisely what has happened.
As a result, the Council is stuck with overpriced and, in cases, derelict properties, with ratepayers picking up the interest costs. It was barmy then, it remains barmy and the most ridiculous expenditure of public money I have ever heard of - and among the heads I believe should roll is that of the Council CEO, Tony Marryatt, who must have been responsible for the advice to purchase under such unacceptable conditions.
Ironically, Mr Henderson was reported last week on National radio as saying that no-one in their right mind would buy inner city properties in Christchurch at the moment - which raises the obvious question of just how he managed to convince the Christchurch City Council to do just that.
Liquor industry ad an ‘Orwellian’ history lesson
Anyone who wants evidence of just how far the liquor industry will go to promote its product need look no further that the new DB Export advertising campaign as it attempts to rewrite New Zealand history in a way that would even astound ‘1984’ author, George Orwell.
The ad is set in 1958 around the time of the so-called ‘Black Budget’ of Labour’s Finance Minister, Arnold Nordmeyer. It paints Nordmeyer as a tight-fisted old bore who taxed beer to the extent that working men could no longer afford to drink. By contrast, brewer Moreton Coutts, the creator of DB export, is portrayed as giving back these working class drinkers not only their sacred turf of public bars, but also export quality beer at affordable prices.
In what is a distortion of epic proportion, the ad goes on to show archive footage of men rioting, ostensibly over the price of beer, when in fact the footage is from the 1951 waterfront lockout.
The truth is, that in the 1958 Budget, Nordmeyer raised excise on beer, spirits, cigarettes and petroleum as a part of a package to meet a balance of payments crisis that had been caused by the previous National government. Nordmeyer was putting the interests of New Zealand before short term political gain and was not trying to stop the working man’s drink after work. Nordmeyer was also, of course, the architect of New Zealand’s Public Health Scheme, the envy of most countries at the time of its introduction.
Pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into patently dishonest advertising campaigns like this shows once again the level of cynicism shown by the liquor industry towards New Zealanders and the social problems their industry produces. In my view, the creators of this ad would have a place in George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth where lies are truth and truth is lies
My full press release can be found here.
The nine-point plan to social harm
In Parliament last month, I set out a nine-point plan on how a major social problem could be created in New Zealand with the active support of this government.
· It starts with legalising a drug known to be of high risk to public health, commercialising that drug, and then selling it in supermarkets and other easily accessible places.
· From there you make it legal to deal in the drug, particularly by glamorising its use through marketing, and then go on to bestow its manufacturers and dealers with honours and make them socially acceptable.
· The icing on the cake could be to link the drug to major sporting teams and events, and for government to fund and Prime Minister to champion venues for taking this particular drug.
· The Automobile Association could then support driving under that drug’s influence.
This might sound extreme, but the Government’s response to the Law Commission’s proposals on alcohol allows all of those things. The Commission describes alcohol as a legalised drug and proposes a new policy framework that it says amounts to a major shift in the regulation of alcohol. The Commission’s recommendations include increasing excise tax on alcohol, banning off-licence sales after 10.00pm, refusing entry to bars and night clubs after 2.00am and increasing the drinking age.
But what has been the Government’s response?
The Commission anticipated some opposition to its recommendations and this is exactly what has happened, to a degree that even I had not anticipated. In response to the report, the Government has done nothing whatsoever to address the problems created by alcohol or to fundamentally change the drinking culture in New Zealand.
The mood of the country towards alcohol abuse is changing, but that change is being led by the public and the media, not the Government. For example, there is 70% support to lower the drink-driving, blood-alcohol limit, yet the Government needs ‘more research’ before it will act. Why?
This Government, normally a slave to the polls, is out of step with the majority of New Zealanders and, until it changes, New Zealand’s record of deaths and injuries on our roads will remain among the worst in the world.
My speech on ‘the plan’ can be found here.
Will National decline liquor money?
I will be scrutinising closely donations from the liquor industry after National MPs objected to claims that their party takes industry money. In Parliament recently I asked National Party members to tell us, how much money is being put into the National Party’s ‘Victory Fund’ by the liquor industry?
For some reason they objected and wanted the question ruled out of order, claiming that it suggested they were influenced by liquor industry donations.
Attempting to have the question ruled out of order means that if it turns out that the Nats have accepted liquor industry donations and then pass pro-liquor laws, there is a potential breach of privilege issue.
If the Nats don’t want to be criticised for taking liquor industry money then they should simply publicly refuse to accept donations from that industry. Even anonymous donations have a habit of becoming public, so I look forward to National refusing any money from vested liquor interests – but I am not holding my breath.
Carole’s birthday
To end this newsletter on a celebratory note, I am delighted to report that we held a very successful 70th birthday brunch for my wife Carole during November. Held at the Clearwater Resort near Christchurch, around 80 friends, family and colleagues gathered to enjoy the occasion.
To me, a real highlight was being able to have so many of Carole’s family come from around New Zealand, a surprise to her as most had pretended they weren’t able to be there. And what a delight it was to hear so many nice speeches and comments about Carole from family members in particular.
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Parker’s election promise has bitten him on the backside
21/12/10 13:09 Filed in: News Releases
Bob Parker’s election promise that the Council’s affairs would be more transparent has bitten him on the backside again, says Wigram MP Jim Anderton.
“The whole secrecy thing was the main reason I stood for Mayor in the first place and this latest council story of $1million parking spaces for Council staff proves yet again that Bob Parker’s assertions that he’s learnt what the people want, shows he has a lot to learn”, says Jim Anderton.
“It’s now abundantly clear that since plans for the Music School at the Art Centre were thrown out, the failure to deliver an underground car park for its staff has put the Council in a tailspin when their secret plans backfired.
“The Press story certainly explains why Art’s Centre Director Ken Franklin wanted to clear out the stallholders from the Art’s Centre Market. What disappoints is the secret way the Council goes about its business.
“Why do we not get the same level of communication on Council’s business deals that we got 24-7 in the early days of the earthquake? Could it be the election is over?
“These behind-closed-doors meetings are like a rerun of the movie Groundhog Day. Ratepayers are going to get more incensed at the Council’s lack of open consultation and the use of excuses such as ‘commercially sensitive’. Mayor Parker’s mandate is to lead an open council, that is what the people of Christchurch want, not more backroom deals that only seem to be self-serving”, says Jim Anderton.
“The whole secrecy thing was the main reason I stood for Mayor in the first place and this latest council story of $1million parking spaces for Council staff proves yet again that Bob Parker’s assertions that he’s learnt what the people want, shows he has a lot to learn”, says Jim Anderton.
“It’s now abundantly clear that since plans for the Music School at the Art Centre were thrown out, the failure to deliver an underground car park for its staff has put the Council in a tailspin when their secret plans backfired.
“The Press story certainly explains why Art’s Centre Director Ken Franklin wanted to clear out the stallholders from the Art’s Centre Market. What disappoints is the secret way the Council goes about its business.
“Why do we not get the same level of communication on Council’s business deals that we got 24-7 in the early days of the earthquake? Could it be the election is over?
“These behind-closed-doors meetings are like a rerun of the movie Groundhog Day. Ratepayers are going to get more incensed at the Council’s lack of open consultation and the use of excuses such as ‘commercially sensitive’. Mayor Parker’s mandate is to lead an open council, that is what the people of Christchurch want, not more backroom deals that only seem to be self-serving”, says Jim Anderton.
Extended free parking critical to city’s survival
18/11/10 11:01 Filed in: News Releases
Progressive leader and Wigram MP Jim Anderton supports the proposal to extend free car parking to inner-city shoppers in the run up to Christmas, and sees the move as ‘critical’ in breathing life back into the city centre after the devastating impact of the earthquake.
“The Council should be doing everything it can to encourage people back into the city centre. Extended parking will give Christmas shoppers an incentive to venture into town again and bring much-needed revenue to the city’s shops and cafes.
“One of my constituents recently took out of town visitors to shops in the city centre and over three days paid $36 in parking fees – hardly an incentive to avoid the suburban malls.
“Many Christchurch businesses have suffered huge losses and face an uncertain future or imminent closure if their revenue doesn’t improve at this crucial time. Extending free parking is a positive step in the right direction and shows goodwill to people when the city needs them most.
“Our inner-city’s very survival relies on shoppers and diners to keep its businesses afloat. The Council must take a longer term view on creating cheaper parking, easing congestion and making the city centre more user-friendly to avoid inevitable business closures and losing valuable custom to the suburban shopping malls”, says Jim Anderton.
“The Council should be doing everything it can to encourage people back into the city centre. Extended parking will give Christmas shoppers an incentive to venture into town again and bring much-needed revenue to the city’s shops and cafes.
“One of my constituents recently took out of town visitors to shops in the city centre and over three days paid $36 in parking fees – hardly an incentive to avoid the suburban malls.
“Many Christchurch businesses have suffered huge losses and face an uncertain future or imminent closure if their revenue doesn’t improve at this crucial time. Extending free parking is a positive step in the right direction and shows goodwill to people when the city needs them most.
“Our inner-city’s very survival relies on shoppers and diners to keep its businesses afloat. The Council must take a longer term view on creating cheaper parking, easing congestion and making the city centre more user-friendly to avoid inevitable business closures and losing valuable custom to the suburban shopping malls”, says Jim Anderton.
Jim's E-News November 2010
08/11/10 16:40 Filed in: Newsletters
Opponent to review Kiwibank
Like putting a fox in charge of the chickens is how I described the decision by the National Government to appoint investment banker Rob Cameron to review New Zealand Post, the owner of Kiwibank. Had it been up to Mr Cameron, Kiwibank would not exist today.
When appointed to look at the business case for establishing Kiwibank, Mr Cameron reported to Treasury that it would neither succeed nor attract many customers. Both predictions proved wrong; Kiwibank has been a huge success and today has more than 800,000 customers.
Mr Cameron also predicted that Kiwibank would not be able to withstand the competitive response of the Australian banks. He was spectacularly wrong about that, too, and overlooked the benefits to New Zealand that occurred because the Australian banks were forced to reduce fees, improve services and stop closing branches.
The appointment of Mr Cameron to review New Zealand Post raises the obvious question about whether the it will be used as a launching pad for another round in the Government’s push to sell some or all of NZ Post and Kiwibank.
Why else would they appoint an individual who has prominently advocated for the privatisation of SOEs to help boost the share market?
The full statement can be found here.
Council inaction causing businesses to face closure
I have concluded that Council inaction and confusion in Christchurch is driving local businesses to the brink of closure following a ‘crunch’ meeting with Sydenham and Beckenham business owners, senior council staff and representatives from the insurance industry, government agencies and the commercial sector.
The meeting followed desperate calls from local owners whose businesses remain effectively paralysed two months after the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which rocked Christchurch. “Bricks, rubble and debris are piled high and have remained untouched for over eight weeks. The addition of cordons and traffic diversions are making pedestrian access a logistical nightmare for local businesses, and retail shops in particular are really suffering.
As a result of the meeting, the Christchurch City Council had effectively been put on notice to clear up the mess and put an end to the misery of local traders before many of them go out of business. Insurance companies have also agreed to treat individual cases on merit and on a ‘goodwill’ basis to speed up claims.
Too much time has been wasted since the earthquake, with conflicting advice, lack of communication and confusion over structural engineering reports, consent applications for repairs or demolition as well as new policy announcements on doubling the earthquake code requirement, all of which have delayed decisions on repairs and/or demolition. An urgent resolution is now critical, not only for the future but also for the very survival of a large amount of important businesses in Sydenham and Beckenham.
The full statement can be found here.
Also of interest:
Pleas to continue wage subsidy for quake hit firms [NZ Herald].
Sydenham retailers want action [Press]
Questions hang over future of shopping areas [Press]
Christchurch mayoralty
It took a seismic shift, but my bid for the Christchurch mayoralty was derailed by what was the third most significant natural disaster in the world so far this year. With incumbent Mayor Bob Parker trailing in the polls by 20%, the 7.1 magnitude Christchurch earthquake catapulted him into what turned out to be an unassailable lead, compounded by the assistance of an unquestioning media and the National Party in support.
Following the election result, I told a packed media conference that Mayor Bob Parker has a significant responsibility to deliver as the city’s rebuilding gets underway. I also warned that Mr Parker had received a clear message during the campaign that the secret decision-making and deals behind closed doors which had been a feature of his mayoralty would not be accepted by the people of Christchurch.
People’s Choice 2021, the centre-left coalition of Labour, Progressive Green and like-minded independents, had a successful local body campaign, doubling its representation on the City Council, from 2 seats to 4, and ensuring that community boards are now dominated by 2021 members.
I hope [the result] delivers a message to the new council that the people of Christchurch do want to see some change, and that some of the lessons learnt from the past are taken on board.
The Press summed up the post-election mood with the lead to its story: “He may have lost the mayoralty but Jim Anderton was treated like a rock star when he addressed his campaign supporters on Saturday night.”
Despite the mayoral loss, we have a great team in Christchurch and we will take the momentum from the mayoral race to the election campaign for a Labour-led victory in 2011.
And now, for something completely different
I may have lost the mayoral election, but during the campaign I discovered that I have a half-brother, Terry Byrne, living in Liverpool.
It transpires that my birth father, Matthew Byrne, left behind a family of three sons in the United Kingdom before coming to New Zealand where he married my mother. My father was subsequently killed in an accident and I was later adopted by his mother’s second husband, Victor Anderton.
Terry Byrne’s son realised the connection between our two families after reading about the story of my search for my natural father’s family origins in Drogheda, a town of 30,000 people 30 kilometres from Dublin. The rest, as they say, is history.
Although I was initially sceptical, the connection from both documents and family photographs became irrefutable.
Terry Byrne is the last of my UK siblings, brother still alive and l will go to Liverpool sometime soon to meet him.
For more, go here.
WARNING: Asset sales on Government agenda
I have warned that further asset sales could be on the Government’s agenda, and this could be one step closer with the release of the second 2025 Taskforce report which recommends that the Government should further privatise publicly-owned assets.
In a recent speech to the Fabian Society, I said that the National Party may well target power companies, roads, Kiwibank and a number of strategic local government assets such as water services, ports and airports for sale. I said the sales would be necessary to pay for the October 2010 tax cuts which gave huge benefits to the richest New Zealanders.
Asset sales coincided with the most dramatic collapse in New Zealand’s economic well-being in recent history, and led to a dramatic gap between the rich and poor. We lost 30% per capita income against Australia between 1970 and 1999, with the worst period between 1984 and 1994, the peak period when both Labour and National were selling assets.
Most of the assets sold during that period were at bargain-basement prices, the top 40 going for a total of $19 billion, just over one half of their combined real market value of $36 billion.
No example is more stark than the New Zealand Railways which was hocked off for around $400 million and allowed to become completely run down by the new American and then Australian owners. Subsequently, the Government was forced to buy back the tracks and then the rail company itself to guarantee the future of rail. The same for Air New Zealand.
By contrast, assets that have been retained have been a success; Meridian Energy’s business in Australia has returned $600 million to the New Zealand taxpayer, and been used to help pay for hospitals and schools. Most New Zealanders are opposed to selling our strategic publicly owned assets – but we have seen it done before and the National Party is indicating they will do it again if they get another term in government.
The Alcohol Reform Bill
boozedaznz – worth watching! Go to this You Tube video.
Two Drinks Max: Lobby power.
The new Alcohol Reform Bill is due to have its first reading in Parliament soon, following which the Select Committee will call for submissions from the public. This is the final opportunity to send comment to the Government about its response to the Law Commission’s review on the use of alcohol in New Zealand.
The Bill will focus on youth drinking and does not propose to deal with drink drive issues for two years, until further research is done.
The main features of the Bill include:
· Splitting the purchase age for alcohol to 18 years for on-license premises and 20 for off-license (by conscience vote).
· Restricting ‘ready to drink’ (RTDs) to a maximum of 5% alcohol and 1.5 standard drinks equals 10 grams of pure alcohol.
· Strengthening laws around parental provision of alcohol to minors.
· Continuing industry self-regulation of marketing and advertising while strengthening restrictions on advertising targeted to under-18 year olds
· Introducing default licensing hours of 8am to 4am for an on-license premises and 7am to 11pm for off- licenses.
· Implementing voluntary, local alcohol plans.
· Cutting down on excessive alcohol promotions at point of sale.
· Clarifying the definition of a supermarket.
· Undertaking further research on the effect of setting minimum price levels.
· Undertaking further research on blood alcohol levels for driving.
Alcohol Action NZ has produced submission postcards calling on Parliament to:
· Put an end to cheap alcohol, beginning with a minimum price for a standard drink.
· Make supermarkets alcohol-free.
· Ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship.
· Reduce the adult blood alcohol level for driving to at least 0.05 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (presently at 0.08).
FREE submission postcards can be obtained by emailing: coordinator@alcoholaction.co.nz
More information can be found here.
TVNZ responds to Henry complaint
TVNZ has confirmed that comments by former Breakfast host, Paul Henry about Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit breached standards of good taste and decency, were unfair and encouraged discrimination, in the Governor-General’s case, against New Zealanders who are not of a particular ethnicity.
In a formal complaint to TVNZ, I said that the question by Paul Henry to Prime Minister John Key, asking whether the next Governor- General would look and sound like a New Zealander, was a significant slur on the dignity and origins of the Governor-General, and in the worst possible taste.
I said that it was only after he and thousands of other New Zealanders complained about Mr Henry’s comments that Television New Zealand took the matter seriously, eventually leading to Mr Henry’s resignation. The Breakfast Show host repeatedly pushed the boundaries of good taste and was encouraged to be controversial by the broadcaster in search of ratings for its morning programme. It is not credible for a public broadcaster to egg on Paul Henry and then distance itself when he goes too far and crosses the line, TVNZ too must share responsibility.
Similarly, it is alarming that John Key just sat there and grinned when Henry made his comment. No other New Zealand Prime Minister would have allowed the comment to go unchecked. It was a significant failure of leadership, made worse by his lack of real action subsequently.
The ‘Henry’ incident was an ideal opportunity for the Government to look at the role and obligations of Television New Zealand and to refocus its position to that of a responsible public broadcaster.
Anderton addresses students at Lincoln
Telling students what it is like to be a ‘one-man band’ in Parliament was just one of the topics on the agenda when I recently addressed students at Lincoln University, just outside Christchurch.
They were described to me as an inquisitive class and they were. The 130 first year students asked a range of questions about my experience in Parliament and Cabinet, particularly given my long experience under MMP and the demands of juggling various roles and portfolios while in Government.
Conceding that, as one MP, I can’t get everything done nor can I get the media attention I might want for any given issue. However, I told the students that I picked out and put a lot of effort into a number of important areas: affordable dental care, alcohol and drug policies, superannuation, suicide prevention, banking and government support for research and development and for innovation.
Also addressed was the way in which I and the Progressive Party worked to form a cooperative coalition with Labour in government, made easier by the closeness of the philosophies and outlook of the respective parties. Although working closely with Labour, I also maintained my independence which meant that I was able to promote issues where, for example, our two parties may have had differing priorities.
One thing, I told the audience was that, while MMP can be improved, it provides better representation than the old two party, first past the post system. MMP also provides that, while the Government always has the majority in Parliament, there are more limits on its power than under the first past the post election system - the best news, I believe, those wanting a democratic form of government could hear.
Like putting a fox in charge of the chickens is how I described the decision by the National Government to appoint investment banker Rob Cameron to review New Zealand Post, the owner of Kiwibank. Had it been up to Mr Cameron, Kiwibank would not exist today.
When appointed to look at the business case for establishing Kiwibank, Mr Cameron reported to Treasury that it would neither succeed nor attract many customers. Both predictions proved wrong; Kiwibank has been a huge success and today has more than 800,000 customers.
Mr Cameron also predicted that Kiwibank would not be able to withstand the competitive response of the Australian banks. He was spectacularly wrong about that, too, and overlooked the benefits to New Zealand that occurred because the Australian banks were forced to reduce fees, improve services and stop closing branches.
The appointment of Mr Cameron to review New Zealand Post raises the obvious question about whether the it will be used as a launching pad for another round in the Government’s push to sell some or all of NZ Post and Kiwibank.
Why else would they appoint an individual who has prominently advocated for the privatisation of SOEs to help boost the share market?
The full statement can be found here.
Council inaction causing businesses to face closure
I have concluded that Council inaction and confusion in Christchurch is driving local businesses to the brink of closure following a ‘crunch’ meeting with Sydenham and Beckenham business owners, senior council staff and representatives from the insurance industry, government agencies and the commercial sector.
The meeting followed desperate calls from local owners whose businesses remain effectively paralysed two months after the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which rocked Christchurch. “Bricks, rubble and debris are piled high and have remained untouched for over eight weeks. The addition of cordons and traffic diversions are making pedestrian access a logistical nightmare for local businesses, and retail shops in particular are really suffering.
As a result of the meeting, the Christchurch City Council had effectively been put on notice to clear up the mess and put an end to the misery of local traders before many of them go out of business. Insurance companies have also agreed to treat individual cases on merit and on a ‘goodwill’ basis to speed up claims.
Too much time has been wasted since the earthquake, with conflicting advice, lack of communication and confusion over structural engineering reports, consent applications for repairs or demolition as well as new policy announcements on doubling the earthquake code requirement, all of which have delayed decisions on repairs and/or demolition. An urgent resolution is now critical, not only for the future but also for the very survival of a large amount of important businesses in Sydenham and Beckenham.
The full statement can be found here.
Also of interest:
Pleas to continue wage subsidy for quake hit firms [NZ Herald].
Sydenham retailers want action [Press]
Questions hang over future of shopping areas [Press]
Christchurch mayoralty
It took a seismic shift, but my bid for the Christchurch mayoralty was derailed by what was the third most significant natural disaster in the world so far this year. With incumbent Mayor Bob Parker trailing in the polls by 20%, the 7.1 magnitude Christchurch earthquake catapulted him into what turned out to be an unassailable lead, compounded by the assistance of an unquestioning media and the National Party in support.
Following the election result, I told a packed media conference that Mayor Bob Parker has a significant responsibility to deliver as the city’s rebuilding gets underway. I also warned that Mr Parker had received a clear message during the campaign that the secret decision-making and deals behind closed doors which had been a feature of his mayoralty would not be accepted by the people of Christchurch.
People’s Choice 2021, the centre-left coalition of Labour, Progressive Green and like-minded independents, had a successful local body campaign, doubling its representation on the City Council, from 2 seats to 4, and ensuring that community boards are now dominated by 2021 members.
I hope [the result] delivers a message to the new council that the people of Christchurch do want to see some change, and that some of the lessons learnt from the past are taken on board.
The Press summed up the post-election mood with the lead to its story: “He may have lost the mayoralty but Jim Anderton was treated like a rock star when he addressed his campaign supporters on Saturday night.”
Despite the mayoral loss, we have a great team in Christchurch and we will take the momentum from the mayoral race to the election campaign for a Labour-led victory in 2011.
And now, for something completely different
I may have lost the mayoral election, but during the campaign I discovered that I have a half-brother, Terry Byrne, living in Liverpool.
It transpires that my birth father, Matthew Byrne, left behind a family of three sons in the United Kingdom before coming to New Zealand where he married my mother. My father was subsequently killed in an accident and I was later adopted by his mother’s second husband, Victor Anderton.
Terry Byrne’s son realised the connection between our two families after reading about the story of my search for my natural father’s family origins in Drogheda, a town of 30,000 people 30 kilometres from Dublin. The rest, as they say, is history.
Although I was initially sceptical, the connection from both documents and family photographs became irrefutable.
Terry Byrne is the last of my UK siblings, brother still alive and l will go to Liverpool sometime soon to meet him.
For more, go here.
WARNING: Asset sales on Government agenda
I have warned that further asset sales could be on the Government’s agenda, and this could be one step closer with the release of the second 2025 Taskforce report which recommends that the Government should further privatise publicly-owned assets.
In a recent speech to the Fabian Society, I said that the National Party may well target power companies, roads, Kiwibank and a number of strategic local government assets such as water services, ports and airports for sale. I said the sales would be necessary to pay for the October 2010 tax cuts which gave huge benefits to the richest New Zealanders.
Asset sales coincided with the most dramatic collapse in New Zealand’s economic well-being in recent history, and led to a dramatic gap between the rich and poor. We lost 30% per capita income against Australia between 1970 and 1999, with the worst period between 1984 and 1994, the peak period when both Labour and National were selling assets.
Most of the assets sold during that period were at bargain-basement prices, the top 40 going for a total of $19 billion, just over one half of their combined real market value of $36 billion.
No example is more stark than the New Zealand Railways which was hocked off for around $400 million and allowed to become completely run down by the new American and then Australian owners. Subsequently, the Government was forced to buy back the tracks and then the rail company itself to guarantee the future of rail. The same for Air New Zealand.
By contrast, assets that have been retained have been a success; Meridian Energy’s business in Australia has returned $600 million to the New Zealand taxpayer, and been used to help pay for hospitals and schools. Most New Zealanders are opposed to selling our strategic publicly owned assets – but we have seen it done before and the National Party is indicating they will do it again if they get another term in government.
The Alcohol Reform Bill
boozedaznz – worth watching! Go to this You Tube video.
Two Drinks Max: Lobby power.
The new Alcohol Reform Bill is due to have its first reading in Parliament soon, following which the Select Committee will call for submissions from the public. This is the final opportunity to send comment to the Government about its response to the Law Commission’s review on the use of alcohol in New Zealand.
The Bill will focus on youth drinking and does not propose to deal with drink drive issues for two years, until further research is done.
The main features of the Bill include:
· Splitting the purchase age for alcohol to 18 years for on-license premises and 20 for off-license (by conscience vote).
· Restricting ‘ready to drink’ (RTDs) to a maximum of 5% alcohol and 1.5 standard drinks equals 10 grams of pure alcohol.
· Strengthening laws around parental provision of alcohol to minors.
· Continuing industry self-regulation of marketing and advertising while strengthening restrictions on advertising targeted to under-18 year olds
· Introducing default licensing hours of 8am to 4am for an on-license premises and 7am to 11pm for off- licenses.
· Implementing voluntary, local alcohol plans.
· Cutting down on excessive alcohol promotions at point of sale.
· Clarifying the definition of a supermarket.
· Undertaking further research on the effect of setting minimum price levels.
· Undertaking further research on blood alcohol levels for driving.
Alcohol Action NZ has produced submission postcards calling on Parliament to:
· Put an end to cheap alcohol, beginning with a minimum price for a standard drink.
· Make supermarkets alcohol-free.
· Ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship.
· Reduce the adult blood alcohol level for driving to at least 0.05 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (presently at 0.08).
FREE submission postcards can be obtained by emailing: coordinator@alcoholaction.co.nz
More information can be found here.
TVNZ responds to Henry complaint
TVNZ has confirmed that comments by former Breakfast host, Paul Henry about Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit breached standards of good taste and decency, were unfair and encouraged discrimination, in the Governor-General’s case, against New Zealanders who are not of a particular ethnicity.
In a formal complaint to TVNZ, I said that the question by Paul Henry to Prime Minister John Key, asking whether the next Governor- General would look and sound like a New Zealander, was a significant slur on the dignity and origins of the Governor-General, and in the worst possible taste.
I said that it was only after he and thousands of other New Zealanders complained about Mr Henry’s comments that Television New Zealand took the matter seriously, eventually leading to Mr Henry’s resignation. The Breakfast Show host repeatedly pushed the boundaries of good taste and was encouraged to be controversial by the broadcaster in search of ratings for its morning programme. It is not credible for a public broadcaster to egg on Paul Henry and then distance itself when he goes too far and crosses the line, TVNZ too must share responsibility.
Similarly, it is alarming that John Key just sat there and grinned when Henry made his comment. No other New Zealand Prime Minister would have allowed the comment to go unchecked. It was a significant failure of leadership, made worse by his lack of real action subsequently.
The ‘Henry’ incident was an ideal opportunity for the Government to look at the role and obligations of Television New Zealand and to refocus its position to that of a responsible public broadcaster.
Anderton addresses students at Lincoln
Telling students what it is like to be a ‘one-man band’ in Parliament was just one of the topics on the agenda when I recently addressed students at Lincoln University, just outside Christchurch.
They were described to me as an inquisitive class and they were. The 130 first year students asked a range of questions about my experience in Parliament and Cabinet, particularly given my long experience under MMP and the demands of juggling various roles and portfolios while in Government.
Conceding that, as one MP, I can’t get everything done nor can I get the media attention I might want for any given issue. However, I told the students that I picked out and put a lot of effort into a number of important areas: affordable dental care, alcohol and drug policies, superannuation, suicide prevention, banking and government support for research and development and for innovation.
Also addressed was the way in which I and the Progressive Party worked to form a cooperative coalition with Labour in government, made easier by the closeness of the philosophies and outlook of the respective parties. Although working closely with Labour, I also maintained my independence which meant that I was able to promote issues where, for example, our two parties may have had differing priorities.
One thing, I told the audience was that, while MMP can be improved, it provides better representation than the old two party, first past the post system. MMP also provides that, while the Government always has the majority in Parliament, there are more limits on its power than under the first past the post election system - the best news, I believe, those wanting a democratic form of government could hear.
NZ Post appointment of Cameron
28/10/10 17:00 Filed in: News Releases
There would have been no Kiwibank if the advice of investment banker Rob Cameron was followed - and that raises questions about his suitability for doing a review of the owner or Kiwibank, NZ Post, says Wigram MP and Kiwibank champion Jim Anderton.
“Rob Cameron was appointed to review the Kiwibank business case. He reported to Treasury that he opposed the creation of Kiwibank because it wouldn’t succeed, and wouldn’t get many customers. Today it has 800,000.
“Kiwibank achieved targets in eighteen months that Mr Cameron predicted would take eleven years to achieve. He could hardly have been more wrong.
“Mr Cameron also predicted that Kiwibank would not be able to withstand the competitive response of the Australian banks. He was spectacularly wrong about that, too - and overlooked the benefits to New Zealand that occurred because the Australian banks were forced to reduce fees, improve services and stop closing branches.
“After being spectacularly wrong about the success of Kiwibank, the appointment of Mr Cameron to review NZ Post looks like another round in the Government’s ongoing push to sell some or all of NZ Post and Kiwibank.
“Why else would they appoint an individual who has prominently advocated for the privatisation of SOEs to help boost the share market.”
“Rob Cameron was appointed to review the Kiwibank business case. He reported to Treasury that he opposed the creation of Kiwibank because it wouldn’t succeed, and wouldn’t get many customers. Today it has 800,000.
“Kiwibank achieved targets in eighteen months that Mr Cameron predicted would take eleven years to achieve. He could hardly have been more wrong.
“Mr Cameron also predicted that Kiwibank would not be able to withstand the competitive response of the Australian banks. He was spectacularly wrong about that, too - and overlooked the benefits to New Zealand that occurred because the Australian banks were forced to reduce fees, improve services and stop closing branches.
“After being spectacularly wrong about the success of Kiwibank, the appointment of Mr Cameron to review NZ Post looks like another round in the Government’s ongoing push to sell some or all of NZ Post and Kiwibank.
“Why else would they appoint an individual who has prominently advocated for the privatisation of SOEs to help boost the share market.”
Council should heed Ballantyne’s message
26/10/10 17:00 Filed in: News Releases
Progressive leader and Wigram MP Jim Anderton supports the call made by Richard Ballantyne in today’s Press to refocus on the important challenge of getting people back into the city centre.
“The Christchurch City Council should take heed of our most successful city retailer and take careful note of what he has to say”, Jim Anderton said.
“Ballantynes is Christchurch’s premier store and the only thing standing between success and disaster in Christchurch’s city centre, which has been dying for a number of years because of the proliferation and user-friendly environment of suburban shopping malls outside of the central business area.
“The Council should take on board Ballantyne’s views and include them in any plans to rejuvenate the heart of our city before it disintegrates any further,” says Jim Anderton.
“The Christchurch City Council should take heed of our most successful city retailer and take careful note of what he has to say”, Jim Anderton said.
“Ballantynes is Christchurch’s premier store and the only thing standing between success and disaster in Christchurch’s city centre, which has been dying for a number of years because of the proliferation and user-friendly environment of suburban shopping malls outside of the central business area.
“The Council should take on board Ballantyne’s views and include them in any plans to rejuvenate the heart of our city before it disintegrates any further,” says Jim Anderton.
Council inaction causing local businesses to face closure
31/10/10 17:00 Filed in: News Releases
Council inaction and confusion is driving local businesses to the brink of closure, says Wigram MP Jim Anderton.
A crunch meeting, chaired by Jim Anderton, was held on Thursday October 28th, between Sydenham and Beckenham business owners, senior council staff and representatives from the insurance industry, government agencies and the commercial sector.
The meeting agreed the situation had gone on for too long and an immediate resolution was required.
Insurance companies also agreed to treat individual cases on merit and on a ‘goodwill’ basis to speed up claims.
The Christchurch City Council has effectively been put on notice to clear up the mess and put an end to the misery of local traders before many of them go out of business.
“Almost two months after the earthquake parts of Sydenham and Beckenham still look like a war-zone.
“Bricks, rubble and debris are piled high and have remained untouched for over eight weeks. The addition of cordons and traffic diversions are making pedestrian access a logistical nightmare for local businesses and retail shops in particular are really suffering.
“The Council cleared up this kind of mess in the city centre weeks ago, so why has this iconic ‘character’ suburb of Christchurch been neglected?
“As a result of the meeting, I expect to see the clean-up and demolition finally get underway and for Colombo Street to be opened up to two-way traffic and parking again, as soon as possible.
“Too much time has been wasted since the earthquake, with conflicting advice, lack of communication and confusion over structural engineering reports, consent applications for repairs or demolition as well as new policy announcements on doubling the earthquake code requirement, all of which have delayed decisions on repairs and/or demolition.
“An urgent resolution to these matters is now critical, not only for the future but also for the very survival of a large amount of important businesses in Sydenham and Beckenham”, says Jim Anderton.
A crunch meeting, chaired by Jim Anderton, was held on Thursday October 28th, between Sydenham and Beckenham business owners, senior council staff and representatives from the insurance industry, government agencies and the commercial sector.
The meeting agreed the situation had gone on for too long and an immediate resolution was required.
Insurance companies also agreed to treat individual cases on merit and on a ‘goodwill’ basis to speed up claims.
The Christchurch City Council has effectively been put on notice to clear up the mess and put an end to the misery of local traders before many of them go out of business.
“Almost two months after the earthquake parts of Sydenham and Beckenham still look like a war-zone.
“Bricks, rubble and debris are piled high and have remained untouched for over eight weeks. The addition of cordons and traffic diversions are making pedestrian access a logistical nightmare for local businesses and retail shops in particular are really suffering.
“The Council cleared up this kind of mess in the city centre weeks ago, so why has this iconic ‘character’ suburb of Christchurch been neglected?
“As a result of the meeting, I expect to see the clean-up and demolition finally get underway and for Colombo Street to be opened up to two-way traffic and parking again, as soon as possible.
“Too much time has been wasted since the earthquake, with conflicting advice, lack of communication and confusion over structural engineering reports, consent applications for repairs or demolition as well as new policy announcements on doubling the earthquake code requirement, all of which have delayed decisions on repairs and/or demolition.
“An urgent resolution to these matters is now critical, not only for the future but also for the very survival of a large amount of important businesses in Sydenham and Beckenham”, says Jim Anderton.
Canterbury people told to shut up and pay up
21/05/10 12:15 Filed in: News Releases
“Unelected commissioners running the regional council are telling Canterbury people to ‘shut up’ about democracy when it comes to submissions - they don’t want to hear about it,” says Jim Anderton, MP for Wigram.
Jim Anderton has obtained documents from the Riccarton Residents’ Association which show that the Commissioners are writing to submitters saying they will not hear submissions on “accountability through elected representatives”.
The Commissioners were appointed to replace the democratically elected Councillors and run the Environment Canterbury Regional Council. New elections will not take place for up to three and a half years.
“Silencing the voice of Canterbury people is a bad start for a bunch of unelected Commissioners, like David Caygill a former Christchurch City Councillor, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, who should know better,” says Jim Anderton.
“To tell residents of Canterbury who wish to make submissions on achieving the earliest possible return to elected democracy to ECan that ‘your views will be noted but not heard,’ is the height of arrogance.
“Canterbury people were shut out of the decision to sack the ECan Council and cancel elections for several years when the Environment Canterbury Act was rushed through Parliament under extra-ordinary urgency.
“Now the ECan Commissioners are taking away the one chance for Canterbury people to have their say on this issue,” Jim Anderton says.
A large number of people and organisations have already submitted questions on accountability and the need for representatives to be elected as soon as possible. The principle of accountability remains even if the Council has been sacked.
“The Government has said that there will be no elections for up to three and a half years. So why can’t local people and organisations not submit their views on why they think elections should be held in 12 months, or 18 months?”
Jim Anderton has obtained documents from the Riccarton Residents’ Association which show that the Commissioners are writing to submitters saying they will not hear submissions on “accountability through elected representatives”.
The Commissioners were appointed to replace the democratically elected Councillors and run the Environment Canterbury Regional Council. New elections will not take place for up to three and a half years.
“Silencing the voice of Canterbury people is a bad start for a bunch of unelected Commissioners, like David Caygill a former Christchurch City Councillor, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, who should know better,” says Jim Anderton.
“To tell residents of Canterbury who wish to make submissions on achieving the earliest possible return to elected democracy to ECan that ‘your views will be noted but not heard,’ is the height of arrogance.
“Canterbury people were shut out of the decision to sack the ECan Council and cancel elections for several years when the Environment Canterbury Act was rushed through Parliament under extra-ordinary urgency.
“Now the ECan Commissioners are taking away the one chance for Canterbury people to have their say on this issue,” Jim Anderton says.
A large number of people and organisations have already submitted questions on accountability and the need for representatives to be elected as soon as possible. The principle of accountability remains even if the Council has been sacked.
“The Government has said that there will be no elections for up to three and a half years. So why can’t local people and organisations not submit their views on why they think elections should be held in 12 months, or 18 months?”
Government cancels democracy in Canterbury
30/03/10 16:06 Filed in: News Releases
In an unprecedented attack on local democracy, the National government has seized control of local government in Canterbury and completely disregarded the wishes of ratepayers, says Jim Anderton, MP for Wigram and Progressive Party leader.
Environment Minister Nick Smith and Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hyde today announced they would sack the Canterbury Regional Council. They also announced there will be no elections for at least three years.
“This is an outrage. 14 elected councillors have just been fired by the Ministers of Local Government and Environment, Rodney Hyde and Nick Smith.
The decision comes after a report by former National Party MP Wyatt Creech. The report recommended sacking the elected councillors and replacing them with appointed commissioners.
“Ratepayers and local farmers have not been consulted. The Councillors in the firing line have only been told this morning that their jobs are gone. This is the kind of response we read about happening in Fiji - not New Zealand.
“If this is how the government proposes to solve the water crisis in Canterbury, then I have grave concerns,” says Jim Anderton.
“ECan has made mistakes in its handling of water issues but it is ironic that ECan was on the brink of coming up with a coherent plan for dealing with the water crisis in Canterbury. Now any solution is on hold while the bureaucrats appointed by Rodney Hyde and Nick Smith move in to take over.
“If the government was serious about water, it would do more than spend a pathetic $700,000 per year through the Community Irrigation Fund on this problem. It would stop playing politics and get serious about water storage. We have plenty of water in and around Canterbury; our problem is how to store it. ECan was about to do something about that,” Jim Anderton said.
Environment Minister Nick Smith and Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hyde today announced they would sack the Canterbury Regional Council. They also announced there will be no elections for at least three years.
“This is an outrage. 14 elected councillors have just been fired by the Ministers of Local Government and Environment, Rodney Hyde and Nick Smith.
The decision comes after a report by former National Party MP Wyatt Creech. The report recommended sacking the elected councillors and replacing them with appointed commissioners.
“Ratepayers and local farmers have not been consulted. The Councillors in the firing line have only been told this morning that their jobs are gone. This is the kind of response we read about happening in Fiji - not New Zealand.
“If this is how the government proposes to solve the water crisis in Canterbury, then I have grave concerns,” says Jim Anderton.
“ECan has made mistakes in its handling of water issues but it is ironic that ECan was on the brink of coming up with a coherent plan for dealing with the water crisis in Canterbury. Now any solution is on hold while the bureaucrats appointed by Rodney Hyde and Nick Smith move in to take over.
“If the government was serious about water, it would do more than spend a pathetic $700,000 per year through the Community Irrigation Fund on this problem. It would stop playing politics and get serious about water storage. We have plenty of water in and around Canterbury; our problem is how to store it. ECan was about to do something about that,” Jim Anderton said.
Save 198 Youth Health Centre
18/03/10 10:14 Filed in: News Releases
Save 198 Youth Health Centre
Jim Anderton’s address to rally
The services provided by the 198 Youth Health Centre over the last 10 years have played a critical part in the mental and physical well-being of tens of thousands of our most vulnerable young citizens, local Wigram MP, Jim Anderton said today.
“At a time when the National led government is calling for more services in the areas of mental health, comprehensive health services to primary care/general practitioner level, not to mention nursing, family planning, counselling vaccinations, alcohol and drug, sexual and reproductive health, peer support and smoking cessation services, this is the very worst time to cease adequate funding for 198 which provides exactly these services.
“With increasing unemployment, increasing social and housing needs, together with cuts in ACC, health and education, such a move would simply be a disaster,” Jim Anderton said.
“It is even more inexplicable when the Canterbury DHB is suggesting the need for a “One Stop Shop” for these services which, of course, 198 already provides.
“At a time when the Christchurch City Council is also reducing its funding for voluntary community organisations it is vitally important that concerned citizens in this city vigorously protest against this serious backward step in the provision of these and other crucial community services.
“For the 198 Youth Health Centre services to continue requires only a very modest amount of additional government funding, approximately around $100,000 per year for what is already a low cost, high quality health service.
“Good wishes for your protest. Be assured that I and my Labour Parliamentary colleagues will be joining you in this fight. I’m certain it is one we can win, no matter how long it takes,” Jim Anderton said.
Jim Anderton’s address to rally
The services provided by the 198 Youth Health Centre over the last 10 years have played a critical part in the mental and physical well-being of tens of thousands of our most vulnerable young citizens, local Wigram MP, Jim Anderton said today.
“At a time when the National led government is calling for more services in the areas of mental health, comprehensive health services to primary care/general practitioner level, not to mention nursing, family planning, counselling vaccinations, alcohol and drug, sexual and reproductive health, peer support and smoking cessation services, this is the very worst time to cease adequate funding for 198 which provides exactly these services.
“With increasing unemployment, increasing social and housing needs, together with cuts in ACC, health and education, such a move would simply be a disaster,” Jim Anderton said.
“It is even more inexplicable when the Canterbury DHB is suggesting the need for a “One Stop Shop” for these services which, of course, 198 already provides.
“At a time when the Christchurch City Council is also reducing its funding for voluntary community organisations it is vitally important that concerned citizens in this city vigorously protest against this serious backward step in the provision of these and other crucial community services.
“For the 198 Youth Health Centre services to continue requires only a very modest amount of additional government funding, approximately around $100,000 per year for what is already a low cost, high quality health service.
“Good wishes for your protest. Be assured that I and my Labour Parliamentary colleagues will be joining you in this fight. I’m certain it is one we can win, no matter how long it takes,” Jim Anderton said.
Mental health disaster unfolding in Canterbury DHB
18/03/10 10:08 Filed in: News Releases
Something has gone terribly wrong with the Canterbury DHB’s management of New Zealand’s only high quality Eating Disorder Unit, Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
He says the resignation of the clinical director, Geoff Buckett, is only the latest disaster.
Dr Buckett is going to Sydney to work for one of the best eating disorder clinics in the world. He has been highly critical of the ‘exclusion from decision making tables’ of the mental health service, and especially of plans to remove adolescents from specialty care.
Jim Anderton has learned that eleven other psychiatrists have also recently resigned, including the chief of psychiatry Dr Phil Brinded.
“Why is the Board and management of the Canterbury DHB overseeing this disaster, with apparent disregard for the serious consequences for the most vulnerable patients and families anyone can imagine?
“Either they know about it and have done nothing, or they don’t know, which is almost worse.
“With the 198 Youth Centre Service going down one day and the Eating Disorder Unit the next, one wonders what else is about to happen to an already fragile mental health system.”
He says the resignation of the clinical director, Geoff Buckett, is only the latest disaster.
Dr Buckett is going to Sydney to work for one of the best eating disorder clinics in the world. He has been highly critical of the ‘exclusion from decision making tables’ of the mental health service, and especially of plans to remove adolescents from specialty care.
Jim Anderton has learned that eleven other psychiatrists have also recently resigned, including the chief of psychiatry Dr Phil Brinded.
“Why is the Board and management of the Canterbury DHB overseeing this disaster, with apparent disregard for the serious consequences for the most vulnerable patients and families anyone can imagine?
“Either they know about it and have done nothing, or they don’t know, which is almost worse.
“With the 198 Youth Centre Service going down one day and the Eating Disorder Unit the next, one wonders what else is about to happen to an already fragile mental health system.”
Launch of the Mutima Project
29/10/09 17:30 Filed in: Speeches
The official launch of the Mutima Project
29 October 2009, 5.30pm.
Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch
SPEECH NOTES
I’m very pleased to be here tonight at the official launch of the Mutima Project.
I am often called on to speak to groups of volunteers who give up their time and use their skills to help other people; whether it’s the Canterbury Coastguard, community volunteers, or cardiac surgeons - (you might actually be my first group of cardiac surgeons).
Each time, I’m struck by the strength of the personal commitment of each of you to serve and help others. We are a stronger and more caring community because of people like you.
The organisations and businesses that have supported the project also deserve our thanks and our praise for being there when you needed them.
I once heard an ad which called on people to volunteer; it said ‘Volunteer! What else are you going to do with a degree in literature?’ You can’t say the same about those of you here tonight; ‘what else are you going to do with a degree in cardiac surgery?’ Well - hopefully a lot. We are here to celebrate that you are choosing to give up your time and use your skills to help the people of Zambia.
I’ve also heard it said that when it comes to community service, if you need something done - give it to the busiest person! I know that many of you are busy professional people, but still, more than 30 of you will make the time to travel to Zambia and carry out 100 heart operations over five years.
Some people spend a life-time volunteering.
I heard a story from a daughter who had just helped her 90-year-old mother through the strain of moving from the family home into a retirement home.
The daughter was trying to tidy up all the arrangements and tactfully said: "Mum, what about Meals on Wheels?" To which her mother replied: "No, dear, I don't think I could volunteer for them anymore.”
Behind the willingness to volunteer is the recognition that there is an urgent problem, and if you don’t do anything, people will suffer or die.
I was sickened the other day to read this statistic:16,000 children are dying from hunger-related illnesses every day on this beautiful planet of ours.
This is a quote from the head of the United Nation’s World Food Programme, who warns that food aid is now at its lowest level in 20 years – even though the need is greater than it has ever been.
Tens of millions of the world's poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding as a result of the financial crisis.
The number of hungry people in the world has increased from 150 million to more than one billion - in a single year.
We’re talking about the loss of a generation of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. It’s a silent tsunami.
This generation of children will never recover unless we do something.
And yet our newspapers aren’t running headlines telling us about this tragedy; there’s no sense of urgency that we have to keep trying to do something.
As many of you here know - some of this tragedy is playing out in Zambia as we speak.
About 60 % of the Zambian population are reportedly living on less than $1 per day.
One in five adults is affected by HIV.
But it’s not all hopeless. There’s a lot we can do, as a country both through our membership of international organisations, and as individuals.
The Zambian economy has depended on copper mining for many years now.
And yet despite being rich in natural resources, its people have been stuck in extreme poverty.
Political corruption and the bad practice of international mining organisations have played their part.
Today, there is international pressure to see countries like Zambia sign up to a draft Natural Resource Charter. This would guide the actions of governments and international businesses so that the proceeds of natural resources go towards development, not into the pockets of the corrupt.
I would like to see New Zealand get behind this Charter and do everything we can to get the governments and businesses in rich countries and the governments of developing countries to sign up to best practice.
I would like to see New Zealand do more as good global citizens. It’s a great shame that NZAID, our aid agency will now be absorbed back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The goal of ‘poverty reduction’ for our aid has been replaced with the goal of ‘economic development’.
I am a strong champion of economic development - I used to be Minister of Economic Development’. But you can’t do much business development if people don’t have enough to eat or clean water to drink, or good quality health care.
We can put pressure on politicians to do the right thing. But what we each decide to do as individuals matters too.
Whether you’re performing heart surgery on a young person in Zambia and giving them a second chance at life; or whether you’re a supporter of the Mutima project - your decision to be part of this project matters.
Thanks to you, a hundred young adult Zambians will have a chance to lead productive and active lives.
Who knows? One of them might become a future leader determined to do more to save that generation of children who are dying right now.
You will have left behind a better functioning hospital system so that in the future Zambian surgeons can perform critical surgery themselve, and projects like Mutima won’t be necessary.
But for today, your work is urgently needed, and I applaud you for your decision to do something to save lives. I wish you the best of luck and I look forward to hearing all about it when you get back.
29 October 2009, 5.30pm.
Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch
SPEECH NOTES
I’m very pleased to be here tonight at the official launch of the Mutima Project.
I am often called on to speak to groups of volunteers who give up their time and use their skills to help other people; whether it’s the Canterbury Coastguard, community volunteers, or cardiac surgeons - (you might actually be my first group of cardiac surgeons).
Each time, I’m struck by the strength of the personal commitment of each of you to serve and help others. We are a stronger and more caring community because of people like you.
The organisations and businesses that have supported the project also deserve our thanks and our praise for being there when you needed them.
I once heard an ad which called on people to volunteer; it said ‘Volunteer! What else are you going to do with a degree in literature?’ You can’t say the same about those of you here tonight; ‘what else are you going to do with a degree in cardiac surgery?’ Well - hopefully a lot. We are here to celebrate that you are choosing to give up your time and use your skills to help the people of Zambia.
I’ve also heard it said that when it comes to community service, if you need something done - give it to the busiest person! I know that many of you are busy professional people, but still, more than 30 of you will make the time to travel to Zambia and carry out 100 heart operations over five years.
Some people spend a life-time volunteering.
I heard a story from a daughter who had just helped her 90-year-old mother through the strain of moving from the family home into a retirement home.
The daughter was trying to tidy up all the arrangements and tactfully said: "Mum, what about Meals on Wheels?" To which her mother replied: "No, dear, I don't think I could volunteer for them anymore.”
Behind the willingness to volunteer is the recognition that there is an urgent problem, and if you don’t do anything, people will suffer or die.
I was sickened the other day to read this statistic:16,000 children are dying from hunger-related illnesses every day on this beautiful planet of ours.
This is a quote from the head of the United Nation’s World Food Programme, who warns that food aid is now at its lowest level in 20 years – even though the need is greater than it has ever been.
Tens of millions of the world's poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding as a result of the financial crisis.
The number of hungry people in the world has increased from 150 million to more than one billion - in a single year.
We’re talking about the loss of a generation of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. It’s a silent tsunami.
This generation of children will never recover unless we do something.
And yet our newspapers aren’t running headlines telling us about this tragedy; there’s no sense of urgency that we have to keep trying to do something.
As many of you here know - some of this tragedy is playing out in Zambia as we speak.
About 60 % of the Zambian population are reportedly living on less than $1 per day.
One in five adults is affected by HIV.
But it’s not all hopeless. There’s a lot we can do, as a country both through our membership of international organisations, and as individuals.
The Zambian economy has depended on copper mining for many years now.
And yet despite being rich in natural resources, its people have been stuck in extreme poverty.
Political corruption and the bad practice of international mining organisations have played their part.
Today, there is international pressure to see countries like Zambia sign up to a draft Natural Resource Charter. This would guide the actions of governments and international businesses so that the proceeds of natural resources go towards development, not into the pockets of the corrupt.
I would like to see New Zealand get behind this Charter and do everything we can to get the governments and businesses in rich countries and the governments of developing countries to sign up to best practice.
I would like to see New Zealand do more as good global citizens. It’s a great shame that NZAID, our aid agency will now be absorbed back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The goal of ‘poverty reduction’ for our aid has been replaced with the goal of ‘economic development’.
I am a strong champion of economic development - I used to be Minister of Economic Development’. But you can’t do much business development if people don’t have enough to eat or clean water to drink, or good quality health care.
We can put pressure on politicians to do the right thing. But what we each decide to do as individuals matters too.
Whether you’re performing heart surgery on a young person in Zambia and giving them a second chance at life; or whether you’re a supporter of the Mutima project - your decision to be part of this project matters.
Thanks to you, a hundred young adult Zambians will have a chance to lead productive and active lives.
Who knows? One of them might become a future leader determined to do more to save that generation of children who are dying right now.
You will have left behind a better functioning hospital system so that in the future Zambian surgeons can perform critical surgery themselve, and projects like Mutima won’t be necessary.
But for today, your work is urgently needed, and I applaud you for your decision to do something to save lives. I wish you the best of luck and I look forward to hearing all about it when you get back.
Water issues in Canterbury
20/09/09 16:39 Filed in: Columns
Any farmer knows that water is one of their most valuable resources.
There is an alarming projection which shows that 3 billion people – half the world’s current population – could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change. The amount of water needed by 2050 could be 50-90% higher than current use.
Farmers in Canterbury know about water shortage. In the seven years to 2006 there was a 49% increase in water allocated for irrigation in Canterbury. But the real issue for us in Canterbury is the storage of water. If we store it, we’ll have enough for everyone.
A great example of this is the Waimea dam in the Nelson region. I was there for the opening of this dam. It’s small enough not to offend anyone. It’s pleasantly tucked into the hill. But it services at least seventy farmers in the area. That’s seventy farms that won’t have to be sold because of drought and low productively.
The downstream effects on the communities around those farms are huge. Everyone benefits if these farms can keep producing. Jobs on farms are not lost. In fact more jobs are created. The increase in the local population means that schools stay open, banks and petrol stations continue to service the local area. And the environmentalists are happy because a small dam like this has positive effects on river flows. The natural environment is protected and the life of the river is sustained.
The alternative was a drought every five years which could mean farm closures and all the destruction and grief that closure causes families and communities.
Now the farmers serviced by the Waimea dam can expect a drought once in twenty years, which is survivable.
Most farmers can live with that.
What was most interesting was that the whole community supported the Waimea dam project. Because it was small, the environmental damage was virtually nil, so it was much easier to get different community groups on board with the project. Forest and Bird for example, and local institutions understood the importance of irrigation to farmers, and the difference storage of water could make. Keeping it small meant that they could support the project.
I believe this is a model for the whole of the Canterbury region.
Larger dam schemes are much harder to get buy-in from the community because the actual or perceived environmental effects are greater. Keep it small, and we have a chance to do something about water shortage.
I would rather see ten local dams built instead of one big one.
I’m pleased to see that our local mayors and chief executives are developing a Water Management Strategy that sets out a twenty year plan for water resources in Canterbury. I hope they look at the Waimea example and see the importance of storage. Sometimes the solutions are staring you in the face.
There is an alarming projection which shows that 3 billion people – half the world’s current population – could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change. The amount of water needed by 2050 could be 50-90% higher than current use.
Farmers in Canterbury know about water shortage. In the seven years to 2006 there was a 49% increase in water allocated for irrigation in Canterbury. But the real issue for us in Canterbury is the storage of water. If we store it, we’ll have enough for everyone.
A great example of this is the Waimea dam in the Nelson region. I was there for the opening of this dam. It’s small enough not to offend anyone. It’s pleasantly tucked into the hill. But it services at least seventy farmers in the area. That’s seventy farms that won’t have to be sold because of drought and low productively.
The downstream effects on the communities around those farms are huge. Everyone benefits if these farms can keep producing. Jobs on farms are not lost. In fact more jobs are created. The increase in the local population means that schools stay open, banks and petrol stations continue to service the local area. And the environmentalists are happy because a small dam like this has positive effects on river flows. The natural environment is protected and the life of the river is sustained.
The alternative was a drought every five years which could mean farm closures and all the destruction and grief that closure causes families and communities.
Now the farmers serviced by the Waimea dam can expect a drought once in twenty years, which is survivable.
Most farmers can live with that.
What was most interesting was that the whole community supported the Waimea dam project. Because it was small, the environmental damage was virtually nil, so it was much easier to get different community groups on board with the project. Forest and Bird for example, and local institutions understood the importance of irrigation to farmers, and the difference storage of water could make. Keeping it small meant that they could support the project.
I believe this is a model for the whole of the Canterbury region.
Larger dam schemes are much harder to get buy-in from the community because the actual or perceived environmental effects are greater. Keep it small, and we have a chance to do something about water shortage.
I would rather see ten local dams built instead of one big one.
I’m pleased to see that our local mayors and chief executives are developing a Water Management Strategy that sets out a twenty year plan for water resources in Canterbury. I hope they look at the Waimea example and see the importance of storage. Sometimes the solutions are staring you in the face.
Coastguards prepare for their busy season.
25/09/09 18:01 Filed in: News Releases
“On an average day the Coastguard around New Zealand make ten rescues. That’s more than 3500 incidents a year, and over 5000 people a year who might not be with us today if it wasn’t for these volunteers,” says Progressive leader and MP for Wigram, Jim Anderton.
“These are just ordinary people with families and jobs, doing extraordinary things every day. And they do it for nothing. That kind of service is humbling.”
Jim Anderton was giving the key note speech at the annual Conference of the New Zealand Coastguard Association in Christchurch. He and his wife Carol are the official Patrons for the Canterbury Coastguard.
“It's easy for people to take this service for granted. But what would we do if we didn't have people around who give so much to helping out others?
“There are still New Zealand boaties out there who think they are indestructible; they don’t wear life jackets or carry rescue beacons. I know that many Coastguard volunteers would like to see more funding to spend on education, and there is a strong demand in the community for Coastguard boating education.
“That’s why I was very pleased last year to advocate in Cabinet with colleagues like Annette King, that a levy from petrol and diesel should be used to fund the work of the Coastguard service.
“They need all the funding they can get, and it doesn’t make sense for boaties filling their boats with fuel to pay a road tax.”
The Land Transport Management Act now allows for some of the fuel excise paid by boaties to be used to fund specified safety activities, most notably search and rescue.
“There are more than 2,500 of you across New Zealand. You are dedicated active volunteers who give over 300,000 hours of your time for free every year, and you are all heroes,” Jim Anderton said.
“Your service is an inspiration. New Zealanders owe you a debt of gratitude, and I wish you a successful and safe summer,” says Jim Anderton.
“These are just ordinary people with families and jobs, doing extraordinary things every day. And they do it for nothing. That kind of service is humbling.”
Jim Anderton was giving the key note speech at the annual Conference of the New Zealand Coastguard Association in Christchurch. He and his wife Carol are the official Patrons for the Canterbury Coastguard.
“It's easy for people to take this service for granted. But what would we do if we didn't have people around who give so much to helping out others?
“There are still New Zealand boaties out there who think they are indestructible; they don’t wear life jackets or carry rescue beacons. I know that many Coastguard volunteers would like to see more funding to spend on education, and there is a strong demand in the community for Coastguard boating education.
“That’s why I was very pleased last year to advocate in Cabinet with colleagues like Annette King, that a levy from petrol and diesel should be used to fund the work of the Coastguard service.
“They need all the funding they can get, and it doesn’t make sense for boaties filling their boats with fuel to pay a road tax.”
The Land Transport Management Act now allows for some of the fuel excise paid by boaties to be used to fund specified safety activities, most notably search and rescue.
“There are more than 2,500 of you across New Zealand. You are dedicated active volunteers who give over 300,000 hours of your time for free every year, and you are all heroes,” Jim Anderton said.
“Your service is an inspiration. New Zealanders owe you a debt of gratitude, and I wish you a successful and safe summer,” says Jim Anderton.
"Jim was the man..."
15/09/09 18:07
A gracious comment from Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove on the Labour MPs’ collective blog, about the opening of Sydenham police station.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked on Friday when [the Police Minister] opened the new Christchurch South police station, and failed to mention the immense debt this new building owes to the advocacy of Progressive MP Jim Anderton over a decade and a half. Instead, Collins trumpeted the new building as proof of National’s commitment to police and policing. National had nothing to do with this new station except as de facto purchasers of the ribbon Judith Collins cut.”
Here’s Jim’s statement on opening day.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked on Friday when [the Police Minister] opened the new Christchurch South police station, and failed to mention the immense debt this new building owes to the advocacy of Progressive MP Jim Anderton over a decade and a half. Instead, Collins trumpeted the new building as proof of National’s commitment to police and policing. National had nothing to do with this new station except as de facto purchasers of the ribbon Judith Collins cut.”
Here’s Jim’s statement on opening day.
Opening of Sydenham police station
11/09/09 14:00 Filed in: News Releases
Jim delivers on his promise
Twenty years ago, local MP Jim Anderton was promised funding to build a new police station in Sydenham. He put out a press release to announce the good news.
The 1984 press release has been pinned on the police notice board ever since.
“I was promised that the Christchurch South Police would have a new station in two to three years,” MP for Wigram Jim Anderton said.
But the funding never eventuated, until the last Labour-led government.
“I’m told that the police are going to frame the old press release from 1984 and give it to me!
“When I first arrived in Christchurch and stood as an MP in 1984, I could see that the police had totally inadequate facilities and were spread out over three sites which was hard to administer.
“In the 1984 –1990 Labour government, I kept reminding the Cabinet of their promise. In the years of the Labour-Progressive government of 1999 – 2008, I promised my Labour Cabinet colleagues that the only way they would get rid of me was to build the Christchurch South Police Station.
“That’s why I was thrilled to be present when the former Minister of Police, Annette King, laid the foundation for the new building last year and am thrilled that the police are finally in their new headquarters,” Jim Anderton said today.
Twenty years ago, local MP Jim Anderton was promised funding to build a new police station in Sydenham. He put out a press release to announce the good news.
The 1984 press release has been pinned on the police notice board ever since.
“I was promised that the Christchurch South Police would have a new station in two to three years,” MP for Wigram Jim Anderton said.
But the funding never eventuated, until the last Labour-led government.
“I’m told that the police are going to frame the old press release from 1984 and give it to me!
“When I first arrived in Christchurch and stood as an MP in 1984, I could see that the police had totally inadequate facilities and were spread out over three sites which was hard to administer.
“In the 1984 –1990 Labour government, I kept reminding the Cabinet of their promise. In the years of the Labour-Progressive government of 1999 – 2008, I promised my Labour Cabinet colleagues that the only way they would get rid of me was to build the Christchurch South Police Station.
“That’s why I was thrilled to be present when the former Minister of Police, Annette King, laid the foundation for the new building last year and am thrilled that the police are finally in their new headquarters,” Jim Anderton said today.
National asked to support vulnerable Christchurch tenants
16/02/09 13:40 Filed in: News Releases
There could be help for Christchurch tenants fighting Council-imposed rent increases if National picks up a proposal for government assistance that was prepared for the previous Labour-Progressive Government, Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
Tenants have successfully opposed the rent increase in court, but the Christchurch city’s incumbent right-wing majority has now signalled it could again try to substantially increase rents or even abandon social housing altogether - leaving two and a half thousand vulnerable tenants with nowhere to live unless central government steps in.
Jim Anderton says the government should step in to help because it would have to pick up some of the costs of a rent increase anyway, including through increased Accommodation Supplement payments.
He today released a business case he sent to the previous finance minister Michael Cullen on behalf of Labour and Progressive Christchurch MPs after a thorough review of the Council’s plan to raise rents to help pay for refurbishment of the Council’s social housing.
The business case was sent by Jim Anderton and Labour MPs Ruth Dyson, Lianne Dalziel, Clayton Cosgrove and Tim Barnett. It sought a net government investment of $29 million over ten years. It would have reduced the rent increase from 24 per cent to ten per cent and allowed for the replacement of over three hundred homes and a continuous refurbishment programme.
He also released Treasury advice on the report that says it should be considered as part of Budget 2009. The Treasury response says there is no evidence that the Christchurch City Council ever approached the government itself to ask for the necessary funds.
Jim Anderton says the Council’s behaviour has created a huge problem, and it’s now up to the National government to help tenants out.
“Council never approached the government before it announced the rent increase. Its threats to abandon social housing are very worrying for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“The net cost to the government of stepping in to help is not unreasonable if it is looked at in the context of a twenty year programme of investment to help very vulnerable people. Over that period, the net cost to the government of $29 million averages around $1.5 million per year.
“The National government has indicated it wants to shoulder some of the costs to local body ratepayers of providing social services, and it has also indicated a willingness to see housing expanded as a response to the global financial crisis. One obvious solution is to assist the council directly to make this investment.
“I hope Gerry Brownlee, as the senior Christchurch government MP, will take over the role of advocating within his government for vulnerable Christchurch city tenants, and I have sent the file on the work done so far to him,” Jim Anderton said.
Tenants have successfully opposed the rent increase in court, but the Christchurch city’s incumbent right-wing majority has now signalled it could again try to substantially increase rents or even abandon social housing altogether - leaving two and a half thousand vulnerable tenants with nowhere to live unless central government steps in.
Jim Anderton says the government should step in to help because it would have to pick up some of the costs of a rent increase anyway, including through increased Accommodation Supplement payments.
He today released a business case he sent to the previous finance minister Michael Cullen on behalf of Labour and Progressive Christchurch MPs after a thorough review of the Council’s plan to raise rents to help pay for refurbishment of the Council’s social housing.
The business case was sent by Jim Anderton and Labour MPs Ruth Dyson, Lianne Dalziel, Clayton Cosgrove and Tim Barnett. It sought a net government investment of $29 million over ten years. It would have reduced the rent increase from 24 per cent to ten per cent and allowed for the replacement of over three hundred homes and a continuous refurbishment programme.
He also released Treasury advice on the report that says it should be considered as part of Budget 2009. The Treasury response says there is no evidence that the Christchurch City Council ever approached the government itself to ask for the necessary funds.
Jim Anderton says the Council’s behaviour has created a huge problem, and it’s now up to the National government to help tenants out.
“Council never approached the government before it announced the rent increase. Its threats to abandon social housing are very worrying for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“The net cost to the government of stepping in to help is not unreasonable if it is looked at in the context of a twenty year programme of investment to help very vulnerable people. Over that period, the net cost to the government of $29 million averages around $1.5 million per year.
“The National government has indicated it wants to shoulder some of the costs to local body ratepayers of providing social services, and it has also indicated a willingness to see housing expanded as a response to the global financial crisis. One obvious solution is to assist the council directly to make this investment.
“I hope Gerry Brownlee, as the senior Christchurch government MP, will take over the role of advocating within his government for vulnerable Christchurch city tenants, and I have sent the file on the work done so far to him,” Jim Anderton said.