Show me the money!
Farrar, Slater and their POAL masters are getting all antsy about how much port workers get paid.
Maybe it’s time they came clean about their own rorting, eh?
January 2012
ImperatorFish: Police Defend Bloody Kindergarten Raid
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
Police and Armed Offender units raided the Meriwether Community Kindergarten just after morning tea, but the raid turned violent when some of the children put up a fight.
Banks a fine ACT MP…
There are a couple of nice pieces in the Herald today on upstanding ACT MP John Banks – on his advising arrested Kim Dotcom on residency and the Overseas Investment Commission, and on his “National” billboards…
Gould on protecting freedom of the press
The high point of John Key’s popularity came about 3 weeks before the election. Then the tea tapes meant a spectacle that was meant to be a show of his power became a media storm with him at the centre. National lost 5% in those last few weeks of the campaign. Key blamed the media. Bryan Gould looks at the war he has been waging against the press ever since.
Open mike 24/01/2012
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John Key and POAL
With the house due to sit in a couple of weeks John Key’s people will be weighing up their response to the POAL dispute.
My guess is they’ll base their decision on what they can get away with politically.
Whatever they do it’ll be no good for the port workers and certainly no good for Key’s goal of closing the wage gap with Australia.
Open mike 23/01/2012
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So what’s going on in the National party?
Labour’s internal politics is public property while National get a free pass on theirs.
This imbalance of transparency and accountability seems weird given National are the ones wielding the real power.
More to the point, what does it mean for our democracy?
Open mike 22/01/2012
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Ports of Auckland vs 400,000 wharfies
Tony Gibson with his $750,000 salary and his senior managers on half a million each may have thought they had it easy beating up on some $27 an hour workers so that they could increase profits by cutting wages but they failed to calculate that those 330 workers are backed by 400,000 brothers and sisters around the world.
Open mike 21/01/2012
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Two Left Feet, or a Kick Ass Combo?
ImperatorFish: Red Alert: The Best Is Yet To David Farrar
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
Scott’s take on Red Alert’s cult of David Farrar.
Weekend social 20/01/2012
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Friday Economics Joke
Adapting to peak oil
As peak oil slowly grinds down our economy – meeting any hint of growth with sky-high petrol prices and making $2 a litre the ‘new normal’, we are actually, gradually,starting to react. Not at a governmental level, where action is most urgently needed, but in the decisions made by ordinary Kiwis every day.
Open mike 20/01/2012
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US Congress gets a Darwin award
The idiots at the US Congress, after covering themselves with shame in 2011, have already started to try to surpass it this year with dumbarse legislation against online copyright piracy. Not only will it not prevent the crimes of its intended targets, but it is also so badly drafted that almost anything can and probably will be deemed to be a copyright violation. Good choice for a Darwin award. The only problem is that most of them have already bred.
It’s not about Race or Age or Gender or Religion…it’s about Poverty
An insightful piece by Pat Brittenden. How can we fix our problems if we won’t acknowledge (and National wants to stop the media talking about) their cause?:
For a long time I have had a bit of an untested theory. I’ve come to a place where I don’t think the negative statistics in New Zealand are about race, age, gender or religion. I think they’re about poverty and the by products of poverty.
Prepare for another delay on that brighter future
NZIER: economy flat-lining
Consumer confidence: down 11 points
Employment confidence: negative
International tourism: down another 3.3%
2012 growth in NZ: cut in half since Budget
World growth: slashed from 3.6% to 2.5%
Chance of NZ recession: 20% and rising
PM and Finance Minister: MIA
Open mike 19/01/2012
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The Wealth Gap
There’s a documentary on BBC World Service about the Wealth Gap – how the top 0.1% keep earning more and more. Looks worth a listen…
Nats built the poverty trap, let’s destroy it
A new study confirms that growing up in poverty means you’ll likely be impoverished as an adult. With the negative consequences for the individual and society. The Nats’ low-wage, high unemployment policies create the poverty trap. Poverty is a design feature of the rightwing economy. Hypocritical and useless to demand their victims save themselves from poverty. Change the policies, fix the problem.
Poverty begets poverty
A good article in the Herald today, not letting National’s attempt at censorship of the issue of Child Poverty get in their way. It points to a lack of social mobility; where those who are poor don’t have equality of opportunity – let alone equity of outcome.
Setting up business: we’re prize winners
Yesterday I officially set myself up in business. As a GST registered independent contractor. It took about half an hour. Both IRD and […]
Nats to use censorship to keep public in the dark ahead of elections
National is quietly using its power to try to prevent programmes about important issues from being broadcast during election campaigns, after a documentary on childhood poverty upset them. When Key finally gets back from holiday, he’s got to explain why his party and government are trying to dictate what should be on TV during election campaigns.
Why the acronyms PIPA and SOPA should worry Kiwis
Green’s MP Gareth Hughes explains the new US internet laws that have the likes of Wikipedia upset, and why we should care: The Green Party is deeply concerned about the Stop Internet Piracy (SOPA) and PROTECT IP (PIPA) Acts currently causing quite a stir in the US and its impacts on New Zealanders access to a free and open Internet and online businesses.
Local board members support wharfies
The travesty of the Port of Auckland dispute is that we have a publicly-owned company trying to slash its workers’ pay so that it can try to undercut another majority publicly owned company that has already slashed wages, the only winners being the foreign shipping lines. Well, here’s some of our representatives standing up for Auckland workers.
Open mike 18/01/2012
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Texas of the South Seas?
Every few years, since the 70s, they’ve promised the great New Zealand oil boom is coming. It ain’t going to happen. If there is lots of oil, it’s deepsea and expensive. And they haven’t found it in 40 years of looking. We have a worse production-consumption ratio now then the 80s. Even if we somehow become a massive oil exporter, it’s not the economic panacea you might think.
There is no alternative
Work conditions in the Right’s ideal world:
- Stevedores only paid while actually unloading containers
- Firemen only paid when fighting fires
- Emergency doctors only paid while saving lives
- Soldiers only paid if under fire
- All Blacks only paid while handling the ball/tackling
MPs only paid while in the HouseCEOs not paid while at their Papamoa beach-house
Open mike 17/01/2012
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Gibson puts his money where his mouth is
An interesting passage from Herald on Sunday article on Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson and Maritime Union President Garry Parsloe: … “Gibson won’t confirm reports he earns $750,000, saying “I don’t do this for the money,” … Parsloe grins. “They should stop paying him then. That would save the port quite a lot of money every year for a start”
1951 it ain’t, for now
Some have compared the Port of Auckland dispute to the 1890 waterfront dispute, 1913 general strike, and 1951 lockout. They want Labour and the Greens to get involved. Actually, this is no 1951 redux. The POA fight is just about one company trying to undercut another. The net effect on New Zealand is zero. The last thing the workers need is Labour creating an excuse for National to attack them.
Open mike 16/01/2012
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Meet the wharfies and their families
The Port of Auckland and its National Party allies would have you believe that the stevedores are monsters for not be willing to accept a 20% pay cut so that POA can try to undercut Port of Tauranga (where’s the ‘national interest’ in that, again?). But, let’s hear from these workers, and their families, as they struggle to protect their livelihood.