"Scientists have identified a set of nine ecological and biophysical limits within which the Earth can continue to sustain human society. These are known as the ‘safe planetary boundaries.’
...There are three planetary boundaries that have already been breached. They are biodiversity loss, climate change and the nitrogen cycle."
It's heartbreaking to read this now. In 2020 it really seemed like it might be possible to convince the Labour government to do a bunch of the stuff described here, and that they might have 6 years to do it. Now we've got the Coalition of Chaos doing exactly the opposite, on almost every point.
The same politicians whose government has been responsible for cutting public service jobs, left, right and centre, will be getting a pay rise to between $3484 and $6288 a week.
Can't wait to hear them decry this "wasteful spending".
The NatACT government's Fast Track legislation takes final decisions over resource management consents away from regional councils, and hands them to government ministers. Think Big 2.0?
I look forward to strong non-partisan resistance from all the people who supposedly objected to Three Waters not because it was Labour policy, but because they thought it gave central government too much control over what were rightly local decisions.
"In a modern democracy... You have to have responsiveness and you have to have public involvement in the decisions all the time, not just the time of elections.
What happens in NZ is we tend to go to sleep between the elections and there isn't enough public involvement in the decision-making system. We need in this country much more deliberative democracy if we are not to go the way they've gone in the US or Britain ..."
Then in the panel discussion with the other PMs, I was fascinated by this exchange;
"We certainly don't need an appointed second chamber, but I think we would benefit from an elected second chamber. Let me test your tolerance... given the judgement [by former Court of Appeal President Justice Robin Cooke] that the Treaty was a partnership... that we have a second chamber that is 50% Māori and 50% non-Māori - elected."
Over the last few decades, neoliberal policy has enabled a new feudalism, where a few hundred families own as much as one half of the population. These rentiers now have huge influence over both business and politics. As a series of distractions from this real and concerning neo-feudalism, its lackeys are whipping up fear of Māori having their treaty rights fully recognised in practice. Implying this would make them into a feudal aristocracy.
"...we backtracked on our election pledge to remove the surtax on superannuation. Because morally I couldn't justify to myself that we would give a tax concession to the wealthy retirees - which removing the surtax would do - while we were taking some off those who were in much poorer circumstances."
Arguably, the neoliberal era in NZ electoral politics began with the Wall St crash of 1987, and ended 2 decades later, with the property crash of 2008. Key's govt reacted out of habit, with bailouts for the owning classes, and austerity for the working classes. But the 2017 Labour govt won on the promise of "transformational" change, and in the context of Ardern and Hipkins condemning neoliberalism. Although policy didn't always reflect this;
NZ Parliamentary elections have been a National/ Labour duopoly for so long it's easy to think it's always been that way, and always will. But NZ Labour has only existed since 1916, and has only been a governing party since 1935. National is even younger, founded in 1936, as a merger of the previous duopoly, Reform (conservative) and United (liberal).
Since then National has become a conservative party, and Labour a liberal party, we could conceivably see a repeat of this.
Grant Robertson permanently leaving Parliament after 16 years, while Wondergrump Peters remains after 45 years, tells us everything that's wrong with #NZPolitics.
I'm no fan of NZ Labour, but Robertson was the most progressive finance minister NZ has seen for decades. There's more he could have and would have done, if it wasn't for the party's neoliberal rump constantly dragging the party back towards the centre-right (witness their tax policy in the last election).
The problem with Kāinga Ora is that successive governments haven't given them the resources they need to do the job required of them. I know of many KO tenants who need wrap-around support, including mental health or social work. Instead they're dealing with a new person every time they hear from KO, most of whom are not even aware of their specific needs, let alone sensitive to them.
I just can't see into the minds of people who think paying people secure salaries to do public service work is "wasteful spending", and giving that same money away to wealthy landowners, for no public benefit, isn't. Can anyone explain the logic of this?
Maybe there needs to a constitutional rule, that when a politician is found to have made a public statement that they knew at the time was untrue, they immediately lose their seat?
"We are under new management in this country, and we are here to grow this country, and we want to have more ambition and aspiration, and what was happening before was not working... we're going to turn this country around, and that means we are going to have tough choices from time to time... NZ is open for business..."
Also can someone get the new Cabinet to watch the Adam Curtis doco series The Trap? It uses Tony Blair's regime to explore how setting targets, while reducing the resources available for achieving them (as the NatACT First govt are already doing in health), can only result in admins desperately gaming the targets, rather than achieving the things the targets were set to aim for.
It's desperately sad that in 2024, the best the new NZ government can offer is warmed-over Blairism.
"As one famous Australian constitutional lawyer said, and it remains the case even under MMP... NZ is an Executive paradise. The sovereignty of Parliament in NZ - which means Parliament can pass any law it likes - is actually the sovereignty of the Executive, not of the Parliament. And that is why so many Opposition MPs have such a frustrating life, because they have very little influence over anything."
"[NZ] Governments of both the left and right invested heavily in public infrastructure such as water, roading and power networks from the 1940s to early 1970s, paid for with sharply higher income taxes, land taxes and estate duties. Government investment as a share of GDP ranged from 10-15% over that period and income tax rates were over 50% for many."
Next time someone tells you that taxing income from capital gains and inheritances is unthinkable in NZ, let alone a land tax, ask them if they know we used to have all three until the 1980s.
"The people I spoke to expect the Government to do more and move faster. And I know that there are some in this House who believe Government is not the answer to these challenges and that less Government is better. But here’s the thing: the Government cannot be a bystander to people suffering confusion and disenfranchisement."
Fa'anānā #EfesoCollins, Maiden Speech to NZ Parliament, 2024
"The lack of discussion about child poverty from the National-led coalition government is concerning. This government is focused on getting people into work, but we know over half of the children in poverty are in households with at least two, sometimes three or four incomes."
Associate Professor #MikeOBrien, Child Poverty Action Group
"Talking about wise investment and avoidance of waste... If the NZ economy is so fragile, how come we can afford a multi-billion tax giveaway to landlords, but cannot afford to spend one third of that amount on securing a reliable trade and tourism ferry link between the North and South Islands? Surely, we must be the only country in the world that is pinning its hopes on a landlord-led economic recovery."
"National has been happy to allow a socially divisive Bill that is proudly in denial of the bi-cultural meaning of this country’s funding document, to enter the House and go through to select committee stage. Meanwhile, that same exposure and opportunity for debate is being denied to a benefit indexation change that will negatively affect tens of thousands of vulnerable people, disproportionately Māori."