Two more ships are currently discharging at Fergusson wharf.
Garry Parsloe said that not a single ship would be worked. Chris Trotter said that ship would pass by the Port. Yet we have two new ships this morning being discharged and loaded.
Irenes Rainbow and JPO Leo are alongside at Fergusson wharf. That is three ships in two days. And not a single union worker on the Port.
Today the Maritime Union and POAL are in the Employment Court.
Chris Trotter appears to be worried that Labour has rebuilt itself into the Rogernomics party again:
If we want to pass through the next round of big change with our values intact, and its burdens equitably distributed, then we’re going to have to learn from past mistakes. In the language of the free-market, we’re going to have to undertake an exercise in “due diligence”.
Scoop journalist, Gordon Campbell, is showing us the way. Writing on his blog, Mr Campbell has presented us with an extraordinary passage from an article about Roger Douglas’s economic “reforms” published in The Listener of 23 February 1985:
Have the policies being tried here ever been tried elsewhere and shown to work? “I can give you the case of Finland,” Douglas replies, “which actually has done better over recent years than New Zealand.” Finland “bit the bullet” and “made the adjustment.” There was a small drop in living standards in 1979, he says, “but Finland has had increases in wages, real wages, ever since…”
Finland? Why does that country’s name ring a bell? Could it be because Finland and its former prime minister, Esko Aho, featured prominently in David Shearer’s “visionary” speech of last Thursday?
Matt McCarten and Chris Trotter are at odds with each other after David Shearer’s big speech failed to really fire.
McCarten says it is good that Labour is moving to the centre:
My Labour mates who didn’t support Shearer in their leadership ballot last year now feel justified.
But they miss the point. I believed Shearer had a better chance of becoming Prime Minister in the next election than any of his colleagues on offer. Under MMP, it’s not the biggest party that wins, it’s the leader of the main party who can form a majority coalition.
If Shearer went further to the left, he wouldn’t grow the coalition but merely succeed in taking votes off his potential allies – the Greens, Mana and NZ First. He’d lose the next election.
That’s why I can see why he believes he has to move to the centre. This opens up space on his left for those three parties to increase their support, promoting more progressive policies than his party does. These parties are already on the left of Labour, on economics anyway, and the Greens and Mana are also on social policy.
After the next election, if these three support parties expand their numbers, they can make legitimate demands that any Labour-led government would have to adopt. It’s called having your cake and eating it, too.
Chris Trotter is not so pleased:
But, is Matt justified in assuming that Labour’s coalition partners will be either inclined, or permitted, to keep their nerve and negotiate an agreement at significant odds with that of the dominant coalition partner?
If, as Matt concedes, Labour’s political trajectory is now firmly set; from Goff’s hesitant (and personally discordant) leftism, to Shearer’s eager embrace of the policies associated with the conservative Finnish prime minister, Esko Aho; then a 2014 “win” by Labour will be attributed (both by itself and the right-wing news media) to the electorate’s endorsement of the very same policies. In this context, the ability of the smaller left-wing parties to “force” Labour to embrace radical policy initiatives – policies already “rejected” by a clear majority of voters – will be extremely limited.
The other problem with Matt’s analysis is that it makes no allowance for the impact a right-wing Labour Party is bound to have on the national (with a small “n”) political environment. By reinforcing the Right’s overall ideological dominance, Labour will make it that much harder for all political parties to evince radical left-wing ideas.
This is likely to be especially true of the Greens, who, having broken through the 10 percent threshold in 2011, will be especially reluctant to revert, at least in the public’s imagination, to once again being a radical party of the political fringe. In other words, if Labour shifts to the Right, the Greens are much more likely to shadow them than they are to increase the ideological distance between them. New Zealand leftists should not forget that the Green’s dramatically improved their electoral position in 2011 by tacking to the Right – not the Left.
Trotter also suggests that the Mana party are too poor, dumb abd stupid to actually deliver anything either than an angry hone Harawira to parliament.
Matt’s thesis would be much stronger if the Mana Party could be relied upon to motivate and mobilise a significant proportion of the 2011 “Non-Vote” of close to three-quarters-of-a-million New Zealanders. But building a truly mass-party of the Left is almost certainly beyond the intellectual, organisational and financial resources of Mana. And even if, by some political miracle, Hone Harawira proved equal to the task of creating a massive new block of radicalised voters from harassed and impoverished workers and beneficiaries, the change his success would bring to the national political environment would, almost certainly, see Labour tacking back towards the Left. In the circumstances of an electoral uprising of beneficiaries and the working poor, the political centre would no longer be a safe place for Labour to be found.
No matter which angle is valid it is pleasing to see the left wing at odds with each other.
Another one of Garry Parsloe so-called ghost Ships turned up again last night.
Remember that Garry Parsloe and Chris Trotter have said that ship will pass the port by and not a single ship would be processed at Fergusson wharf. Right now there are two ships being processed at Fergusson.
It seems that not only can we see Parlsoe’s ghost ships but so can the cameras.
Schelde Trader arrived last night.
Despite all of Garry Parsloe’s threats and intimidation that not a single ship would be worked at Ports of Auckland and despite Chris Trotter’s assertions that they would “pass by”:
Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said the striking workers were stopping trying to stop non-union members from unloading the NYK ship, which he claimed was part of the spreading “cancer” of the employment dispute.
The port had told the union the ship would not be unloaded in exchange for a guarantee striking workers did not stop the cruise ship from docking, he said.
“It’s all fixed at this time. We’re only taking action against the ships that are taking action against us.
“We just don’t want these ships in there and have non union workers doing our jobs while we’re on strike. It’s reprehensible.”
CSAV Ranquil has just docked at Fergusson and unloading has commenced. Looks like Gary has lost another one.
Here is a screen shot of the AIS data for that ship showing the track into the harbour. This is exactly the same type of data that all ships have and a quick check of this shows that the union’s story about ships turning off AIS data is like all things they seed with the media a complete fabrication.
From the post about Chris Trotter calling time on David Shearer, Guestosterone replying to Phil U:
“i had a raging argument at the standard”
thats like a fight over an apple core on the special bus
Chris Trotter thinks David Shearer has badly handled the POAL dispute.
The Invisible Man has another disastrous interview on Breakfast yesterday, where he failed to assume any position at all.
Forget Parliament today, the Play Of The Day has to be Chris Trotter who called time on David Shearer’s constant fence sitting and lack of leadership.
Here’s a short highlights package from this morning’s interview.
Chris Trotter asks Shearer – Which Side Are You On?
Chris Trotter on TVNZ this morning was scathing of David Shearer.
Trotter says Shearer doesn’t have it. That Labour has other options for Leadership.
It underlines everything I’ve been saying.
He compares Shearer’s stance with Walter Nash who famously said he was neither for nor against the wharfies.
Trotter rightly concludes the Shearer’s position is untenable as a Labour Leader.
There are many warnings for Len Brown as the hard left considers him missing in actions over the ports dispute.
Chris Trotter fires a shot the other day and last night issued another more dire warning:
So stand steady, comrades. If it seems dark now, it will be lighter soon. You are not alone. You have right on your side – and time as well. Every day and every ship that passes brings the moment of reckoning for Tony Gibson and his mates one day and one ship closer.
And the same goes for that filleted jellyfish formerly known as Len Brown. If I may conclude by paraphrasing the Australian Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, on the day he was dismissed:
“Well may you say ‘God save Auckland’s port’ – because nothing will save Auckland’s mayor!”
Malcolm Harbrow at No Right Turn likewise isn’t impressed:
Meanwhile, Len Brown stands on the sidelines and does nothing. And that, I think, is the end of his mayoralty. Elections aren’t until 2013, but he’s just publicly repudiated his base, and they’re not going to forget.
