October 2011

Felix Marwick outlines Phil Goff’s embarrassing empty campaign:

But Friday’s follow up was, to put it bluntly, not that impressive. It started with Phil Goff visiting students at Auckland’s Wesley Intermediate School. There he discussed at length the importance of savings, the dangers of loan sharks, and why it is important to plan for the future.

Now maybe I’m out of touch, but to see a politician explaining savings policy to 11 and 12-year-olds just seemed a bit strange. Let’s set aside for a moment that they’re not of voting age (though obviously their parents are). Pushing political policy to pre-teens seems, I don’t know, like a waste of time? It also seems a bit cruel. From my recollections of my school days I would have found having a politician explain savings initiatives to me as something that would be a detention style punishment.

Phil Goff’s next gig of the day was a public meeting with senior citizens in Henderson. It was a chance for him to explain Labour’s policies and a chance for them to quiz him about them. That’s actually a good thing. Despite the way he may appear to many on TV, Phil Goff is actually very good at engaging with people in this sort of forum. He’s a strong debater and can make good connections when he engages with the public directly rather than via media.

The problem was only around two dozen people were there to hear him speak.

It was a huge waste of an opportunity. The meeting should have been stacked with people, even if the party had to bus their own supporters in to make up the numbers. It does not speak well of local list MPs Carmel Sepuloni and Lynne Pillay that the attendance was so woeful.

The day after what was supposed one of Labour’s major policy releases, the party’s leader should have been pushing it to the biggest audience possible, or at the very least be seen to be doing so. This definitively did not happen. What was flagged as a bold idea on Thursday got a feeble follow up on Friday.

To put it in perspective; while the Prime Minister was playing with Hobbits and Hollywood, Phil Goff was auditioning to be the Invisible Man.

Labour says it wants to make this election a battle of ideas. For this to work it needs to be presenting its ideas directly to as many people as it possibly can. A battle based on ideas cannot be won if people aren’t aware of the ideas you have.

Hilary Clinton’s 3am ad for her battle for the Democratic nomination:

Playing on anxieties about national security, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has produced a “red phone moment” advertisement that suggests she would be better able to respond to a crisis than Senator Barack Obama.

Ultimately it didn’t matter, Obama won the nomination and is now the President.

Matt McCarten isn’t happy with Labours super plans:

Labour’s gamble on its unpredictable superannuation policy gives it media domination for the next few days, as political pundits praise Goff’s seriousness and responsibility on fiscal management. It hopes this will put Key on the back foot and open up a fruitful line of attack for Labour for the whole campaign.

But here’s the thing: making workers stay in their jobs two years longer and forcing them to hand over a percentage of their wages to a private company to invest into large capitalist corporations for a fee is not a pro-worker policy – no matter how it’s dressed up.

What happens when these companies go bust, like many have in the United States and Europe? People over there have had their entire savings wiped out through incompetence and, in some cases, downright theft.

The government doesn’t guarantee them and these people have been left penniless.

If both major parties were honest, they would admit the actual purpose of these KiwiSaver schemes is to privatise government superannuation by stealth.

Matt might have a problem with that, I certainly don’t. Labour will though:

In proposing that KiwiSaver becomes compulsory, the Labour Party is forcing workers to pay an additional flat tax towards their retirement.

Kerre Woodham gets to the nub of Labour’s problem:

I’m not sure Labour will win any votes by tinkering with super eligibility. But it should certainly win them respect for having the courage to put the issue on the table.

Yep, except they would get respect if they had a salesman that you could trust or belief. Instead they have Phil Goff who after a lifetime in parliament has got more positions on anything than the Kama Sutra.

Courage? I’m not sure on that. Desperation makes people do strange things.

The Economist has discovered National’s strategic stupidity:

Labour’s election campaign emphasises the likely pain ahead in a National Party second term. In September, two international ratings agencies downgraded New Zealand’s credit rating because of its high level of private-sector debt. Mr Key’s flippant response was widely criticised. A perception of a sluggish government reaction to the oil spill was also jumped upon by Labour.

On top of that, the prime minister’s coalition partners are in trouble, whereas a possible Labour partner, the Green Party, is enjoying increased support. An absolute majority for one party is unprecedented under the partly proportional electoral system New Zealand has used since 1996. So if Labour could cobble together a coalition, it could yet pull off a surprise. Like the All Blacks, Mr Key may find victory harder than expected.

It astounds me that National MPs and the Prime Minister remain silent on the referendum. If MMP is retained and Labour manages to cobble together a coalition of the disaffected then New Zealand and National will rue the day they quietly let the unions, Labour and Greens control the debate on the referendum.

Proverbs 30

¹⁸ There are three things that amaze me—
no, four things that I don’t understand:
¹⁹ how an eagle glides through the sky,
how a snake slithers on a rock,
how a ship navigates the ocean,
how a man loves a woman.

With the announcement of Labour’s savings and superannuation policy they are basically showing that they are willing to burn off Winston with their plan to raise the retirement age.
The devil of course will be in the detail. Certainly there is precious little of that other than nothing is going to change for at least 6 election cycles. Labour’s promise is as hollow as their promises for tax cuts.

As we now know this won’t take effect for years, so Labour is still left with a huge hole in their numbers over the next few years. A $16 billion hole.

It still means billions more in borrowing at the time debt is the last thing anyone wants. Sure National is borrowing, but Labour will borrow much, much more. $16 billion more.

I want to see the detail, including their spending tracks, before I’d believe a word of what they’re saying. In fact a welcome change would be to see political aprties produce independently audited and costed spending plans. Larry Williams mentioned this on NewstalkZB on Friday night and it is something I agree with.

Still I wouldn’t be holding your breath though, details are not something Labour’s strong on when it comes to tax policy. I xpect they will have to announce an Expert Panel to deal with it all.

Last week Labour released their employment policies and front and centre in them was a return to the style of union bully tactics we had in the 70s and 80s. Darien Fenton on launching the policy and strategies told us that their plans would resemble the arrangements that Australia “enjoys”.

I wonder how the public in Australia is enjoying their unions now:

Qantas Airways grounded all of its aircraft around the world indefinitely on Saturday due to ongoing strikes by its workers.

The Australian carrier’s entire fleet of 108 aircraft will remain grounded until unions representing pilots, mechanics and other ground staff reach an agreement with the airline over pay and conditions, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told a news conference in Sydney.

“We have decided to ground the Qantas international and domestic fleets immediately,” Joyce said.

Flights already in the air when the announcement was made were to continue to their destinations.

Staff will not be required to show up at work and will not be paid starting Monday, Joyce said.

Joyce said he made the decision early Saturday and then gained the approval of the Qantas board.

The airline had been forced to reduce and reschedule flights for weeks because of a series of strikes and overtime work bans over staff concerns that their jobs are being moved overseas.

As is usual the union shave tried to muscle unreasonable demands from the company and as a result the board has decided that it is cheaper for the company in the longrun to shut down for a period of time rather than continue to suffer ongoing unpredictability from stroppy unions.

The tourism industry has been brought to its knees by unions:

“Now we are facing the uncertainty of this decision, forced by the unwillingness of unions to accept the globally competitive nature of tourism and aviation,” he said.

“The 500,000 people directly employed in Australia’s $94 billion tourism industry do not deserve to have their livelihoods threatened by this, which could be the straw that breaks the camels back.”

This sort of thing is precisely what labour has promised to deliver to us after the generale election should they win. Their opening address clearly signals a return to the cloth cap socialism that dogged this nation in the 70s and 80s. Rampant unionsim that saw projects like the Mangere Bridge stalled for year after year after year through industrial sabotage by the unions.

Qantas has shown us what we can expect if Phil Goff and his band of mediocrity are returned to the treasury benches.

Matt McCarten is whining that compulsory Kiwisaver is just an extra tax on workers, one that should be paid out of PAYE:

Raising the employers’ contribution by half a per cent each year, until it reaches 7 per cent, just means that most employers will deduct that amount from any annual wage increase offer they would normally make.

Effectively, most workers will be paying the whole lot. This is for a retirement fund that, up until now, their PAYE tax has covered.

Politicians pretending that raising the retirement age is a sacrifice we are all going to have to make are being disingenuous.

Matt knows all about PAYE, the organisations he runs simply don’t pay it. Then he has the audacity to suggest that retirement should be funded out of something he doesn’t even pay.

Maybe Matt would be a bit more believable if his organisations actually paid their PAYE. I’m surprised he even mentioned it in his column.

A couple of days ago I went and cleared the mail box.

Once again Colin Craig has mailed out an expensive coloured brochure. The brochure itself is 12 pages long. It is basically tl;dr. But what makes it worse is it was delivered with a whole lot of other glossy brochures otherwise known as junk mail. I very nearly threw the whole lot in the recycling bin then noticed it was the Conservative Party brochure.

The only reason I kept it was because I couldn’t believe that the Conservative Party and Colin Craig are repeating the errors of Colin’s failed mayoralty bid. back then he sent a brochure to every elector, instead of every household. This time it is every household but delivered with all the junk mail.

I know the direct mail industry thinks a return of 1% from their mail-outs is considered spectacular. I would think that less than 1% of households even read this brochure, instead they are now junking up the landfills around the country.

Slow learners are painful in politics, but then again it is his own money, so Colin Craig can do what he pleases with it. If he wants to repeat the same mistakes over and over again and blow wads of cash it then he can go right ahead.