Matt McCarten

He shouldn’t really be talking about taxes at all

Matt McCarten blurts out another anti-capitalist rant in today’s Herald on Sunday. But he finishes up with some breathtaking hypocrisy:

Twice as many children grow up in poor families now than in the 1970s and 80s, so the disparity will get even worse.

The solution to the poverty gap is for the state to raise enough taxes to fund schools, hospitals and housing. Then have economic policies and industrial laws that aim to create high-waged jobs.

Instead, our economic model requires the opposite. It seems it’s now a crime for a worker to have well-paid full-time job. Just look at the waterfront.

The solution for the problem of not enough taxes is for people like Matt McCarten to actually pay their taxes rather than steal employees PAYE. If people like Matt McCarten actually paid their taxes that were due I think we would find we would be a whole lot better off.

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More trouble for Len

As if Len Brown hasn’t got enough on his plate with the POAL dispute and Matt McCarten’s vile hatred, he also has major problems with his Auckland Plan.  The tipline has run so hot over the weekend with information about the mayor’s “visions” for Auckland that I’ve literally run out of paper to print it on.

So much information has come across my desk that it is difficult to find the time to read all of it and it is also hard not to fall off my chair laughing at some of it.

The main issue is the retention of the urban limit. Greenie planners despise removing the urban limit.  They also masturbate over heritage as Len Brown’s chief media mouthpiece, Bernard Orsman, wailed in Saturday’s Herald.

This gnashing of teeth and argy bargy between greenie environmentalist planners has come about because a leaked report on the Auckland Plan by third party consultant developers hired by Len’s council has pretty much said that Len’s intensification model for Auckland is not going to work unless some major changes occur in land zoning and demolition of heritage housing.  Yep, massive re-zoning and demolition of heritage housing.  Remember the outcry from greenie environmentalists when Len stood by and watched those outdated, decrepit old houses torn down in St Heliers?  And what about the reaction from greenie environmentalists in Saturday’s Herald when that old rust bucket in Freemans Bay was going to be demolished?  City Vision’s Shale Chambers (a Labour Party hack) called it a “sick joke”.

Well get your bucket ready Shale because here’s another sick joke for you, and for your party’s leader.  The consultant report said this about Mt Albert:

Substantial intensification opportunities exist. The Unitec site could be substantially master-planned to a high density Campus, similar to the British Columbia University in Vancouver.

This area is capable of supporting substantial market-led intensification, with bold up-zoning.

Mt Albert will be a litmus test for political resilience.

Prepare an intensification master-plan for Mt Albert. Communicate the Plan clearly with the Community.

Council should not believe intensification will occur without major upzoning. Without boldness, intensification will be ad-hoc and low in number.

Mt Albert is a litmus test for political resilience. Without major up-zoning intensification will be sporadic and low quality. Quality upzoning could make Mt Albert a vibrant intensified precinct.

I can’t wait to see David Shearer standing in front of the bulldozers when the developers start demolishing those 80yr old houses in Mt Albert for semi-detached townhouses and units.

As the tipline has been running so hot this weekend on this stuff, I will reproduce more material in coming days that will show Len’s compact city model is, to quote Shale Chambers, a sick joke.

The Worm Turns

Tax cheat Matt McCarten continues to hate on Len Brown:

When Len Brown was asked for a response to Ports of Auckland’s plan to casualise the jobs of waterfront workers, couldn’t he have simply said that as Mayor he supported well-paid, fulltime jobs for workers in his city?

Instead he bent over backwards to distance himself from the wharfies and asked the workers this week to negotiate “more flexible work practices to reflect changing trends of the international shipping market”.

Is our Mayor for real? What trends?

Yes, rather than feather the beds of the already well paid unionists.

It seems our “people’s Mayor” is more concerned with not offending the political and business elites. And anyway, how exactly was the Mayor expecting the wharfies to negotiate when Gibson told them his plan to eliminate fulltime jobs was non-negotiable? The workers either agree to give up their jobs or he’ll sack them.

When you have wharfies sitting on $800,000 pension plans and with very generous redundancy provisions you start having to follow the money if you are looking for reasons why the union has been so intransigent.

The Mayor’s responsibility is to represent the will of his citizens and act in the interests of their city. To sit on the sideline and pretend the port dispute is merely about wages is naive, or disingenuous at worse. It is grand-scale theft by the very people we are paying to run it.

It’s time to step up for the people, Len. Either demand Gibson’s sacking or stand on the sideline watching hundreds of workers who voted for you lose their livelihoods. The next phase will be to sell the port.

The reason there is a board and ownership structure is to stop speechifying tax cheats from ever delivering on threats to sack people who are actually doing their jobs.

Ports confirms salary figures of wharfies

Despite the attempts of the Maritime Union, Matt McCarten and also their union flunkies at The Standard, the Ports of Auckland have today confirmed the figures that Cactus Kate blogged for wharfie remuneration. Straight from the horses mouth so to speak. There cannot any longer be any doubt about the figure, we can all safely use the $91,000 pa figure.

Worse too, for the union, they did it on The Standard. In fact the same post where they defamed me and then had to retract their false claims:

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Ports Crisis – Mythbusting, Casualisation

I see that Matt McCarten managed to pop down to have a chat with Gary Parsloe and so was able to put the union spin into his column in the Herald on Sunday.

The union constantly goes on about how they don’t want a pay rise, in fact they are now asking for a $10,000 pay decrease just so long as they can stop casualisation. Bizarre, but Gary Parsloe said it in National Radio the other day and now Matt mcCarten has repeated it.

They offered not take any increase. In fact, they’d cut their annual wage by $10,000 as well as extend their working week from 26 hours a week to 40 for no extra pay.

But let’s look at their claims of casualisation…frankly speaking it is bullshit…their claims that is.

They moan about being dragged out of bed at all hours and not being able to plan their family life. But the reality is we are talking about a Port here.

That means that the work is programmed well in advance. You see fully laden container ships don;t just miraculously appear on the horizon needing thousands of containers unloaded with a couple of hours notice. Ships arrive and leave according to schedule. The schedule is so well publicised that cargo manifests are broadcast to customers via cellphone and websites. The rosters for POAL are set 6 weeks in advance so there certainly isn’t the 3am cellphone call to action that these chumps are whinging about. They know when they are on call weeks in advance to cover illnesses and injuries, they are simply being stroppy unions thugs.

Businesses know exactly where their containers are and a great many of them are really annoyed that their stock is sitting on Auckland’s wharf while overpaid gorrillas moan about “casualisation”.

One importer of important equipment and consumables isn’t a huge importer, but at 10 containers a week is now seriously looking at moving his business to Tauranga to get certainty of delivery for his customers. It doesn’t take long for more customers of POAL to start doing the same and trickle becomes a torrent. But businesses like his are sick of seeing the GPS location of their paid for supplies sitting stagnant on Auckland’s wharf.

The union claims about casualisation are emotive waffle words designed to confuse the hoi polloi. It is rubbish. So while they ensure the silence of their political masters through donations the union calls on their union mates with newspaper columns to continue to spin their lines. The Ports of Auckland needs to get smarter with their PR and media strategy, the need  t0 play hardball like the Union is. Right now they are slowly losing the PR battle by letting the union talk around the main issue that Ports of Auckland’s labour costs are 5 times that of Ports of Tauranga and their productivity is compared with their competitor is woeful. Acceding to union demands will entrench those failings and continue to bleed business to competitor ports.

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Whaleoil Redux 2011 – Q1

Today is the last day of the year and what a year it has been. The chaos and mayhem I created was:

January 2011 – 151 posts

The new year started with yet another case of celebrity name suppression. Martin Devlin had thrown a tanty and decided to bounce on the bonnet of his missus’ car. With the ensuing media frenzy he eventually outed himself.

I called time on the Royal NZ Ballet:

From the latest available published accounts for the Royal NZ Ballet.

For the 2009 year.

Ministry for Culture and Heritage funding – $3,959,000
Sponsorship and donations – $2,010,000
Box office revenue – $2,631,000
Total Revenue  - $8,600,000

On these figures the Royal NZ Ballet bludges $1.50 for every dollar they raise in ticket sales. That’s right, you and I pay $1.50 for every $1.00 some liberal elite wanker pays to sit and watch ballet.

I interviewed Judith Collins for my Summer Series interviews. I am yet to decide if I will do another Summer series.

I outed the Albany Superette for selling P-Pipes. It subsequently was followed in the MSM days later. I next day I got my first legal threat of the year.

On January 9 I highlighted Sunday Star Times and their dodgy polling company Horizon. They never learned from that post and went on to become completely discredited with their methodology and results. It still didn’t stop Radio Live from featuring them, though I understand that Horizon actually paid Mediaworks to do it.

I drove halfway down the Napier-Taupo highway to meet Garth McVicar for my Summer Series interviews. Followed up a few days later with an interview with Trevor Mallard. I doubt he will do another. While in Wellington I also popped in for coffee with Celia Wade-Brown and talked about her victory in the local body elections.

I started asking questions about Len Brown’s 100 things in 100 days. Len Brown starts to desperately look for things to do in his 100 days. On day 79 Len Brown released 52 things he was going to do.

On January 20 I reminded Len Brown about his promise for a referendum on Maori seats. This was before the Maori Statutory Board blew up in his face:

He made this promise throughout the campaign, but has chickened out of a referendum. On Q&A he was trying to buy himself some wriggle room.

On TVNZ’s Q & A yesterday, Mr Brown said a referendum on creating Maori seats on the council “may well” be possible in the next three years

This blog has reminded him of his promise here, here and here.

Brian Rudman felt obliged to attack Len Brown and his failure of the 100 things in 100 days promise.

I had a beer with Chris Trotter for my Summer Series interviews. I also went to the Unite Union bunker and interviewed Matt McCarten.

I asked whether or not Labour was snooping on your emails. This story develops in later months.

I started my battle with the Teachers unions.

The good people at Kaimata Retreat get suspicious of a lying blonde tart and google Pearl Going. They subsequently contact me and I out her re-emergence as a bullshit artist.

After Phil Goff handed in his man card by dying his hair I started a series of hair do suggestions for him.

 February 2011 – 187 posts

Chris Hipkins kicked off the first SMOG of Labour with porn spam on Facebook profile.

On February 2 John Key said no to Winston Peters and set the election date.

Len Brown finally released his full list of 100 useless things he was going to do inside 100 days.

On the 6th of February Len Brown fell for the classic Michael Bloomberg train sting. Jonathan Marshall and a photographer bust Len Brown and his hypocrisy over riding the rails to work.

The pressure built on Len Brown over his little train ride double standard.

I told Nikki Kaye that she could have a gay Mardis Gras but only if the government or council didn’t pay for it.

Michael Wood announced on 11 February that he wanted to ensure that there were no penis lollies in Botany despite the fact that there were no penis lollies in Botany.

Trevor Mallard uses Red Alert to attack Jami-lee Ross as a “Tory lump of lard” and accuses him of being a “nasty piece of work”.

On February 15 I said that Carmel Sepuloni wouldn’t win in Waitakere.

On 16 February I highlighted for the first time the skulduggery that was going on in Rodney electorate for the National party selection.

It was in February that we had a rash of MSM writing articles completely unrelated to Hanover and Mark Hotchin but tied them in in either headlines or the body of the article.

The Rodney Selection skulduggery continued. At this stage it only involved a local and the electorate chair, it was however to go much deeper than this. I then outed the involvement of a former South African white supremacist in the manipulations in the Rodney selections. It took several posts to tell the story.

Having dealt with the local skulduggery in Rodney it then became apparent that that there was two separate cases of skulduggery going down. The rather inept local incident with Brent Robinson and then the involvement of the regional hierarchy in attempting to stack appointed delegates. The Rodney selection was then postponed. It was to get much worse.

Serious muckraking was then deployed against Mark Mitchell. It was run by a sitting board member and involved a journalist as well. Things were getting very murky in Rodney electorate.

March 2011 – 187 posts

The Rodney selection was delayed so an audit of membership could be completed. On 4 March the selection process was cancelled and a new selection processed launched such was the level of skulduggery. A serious miscarriage of justice in selection was averted. The irony is the board member most deeply involved int eh murk now claims credit for halting the selection. This is hugely ironic because it was him that was visiting delegates with printouts of websites, a tactic that was later employed in Coromandel by the same board member on behalf of the same candidate.

The day after Jami-lee Ross won the Botany by-election Phil Goff claimed victory for the Labour party.

Speaking of the Labour party, I helpfully make some suggestions for their coming campaign. They ignored them. We know where that ended up.

Trevor Mallard hits a snag using email.

I leaked an email from Perry Rush of the NZPF outlining how they were going to run a campaign against Anne Tolley.

The very first Txts from New York.

I reviewed my Savage 17HMR from Hamills.

Shearer backed by VRWC, Ctd

Well what do we have here?

I have already outlined the backing of Shearer by the VRWC members who attended Matthew Hooton’s BBQ. To a man they are all backing Shearer and now we see the other attendees of the BBQ coming out of the woodwork.

We have already seen Chris Trotter supporting Shearer obtusely but supporting nonetheless, he was at the BBQ.

John Pagani supports David Shearer, John Pagani was at Hooton’s BBQ.

This morning we have Matt McCarten, disingenously suggest that he and John Tamihere, Willie Jackson, and Matthew Hooton all came to the same conlcusion “independently” that David Shearer was the man for Labour. Matt McCarten and Willie Jackson were also at the BBQ. I am yet to confirm whether John Tamihere was there but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to join the dots here.

Here is a random impertinent question for the media to ask: Was there anyone at the BBQ who doesn’t support David Shearer?

All these people, all in attendance at corporate whore and political svengali Matthew Hooton’s BBQ, all come out supporting David Shearer.

Is David Shearer Matthew Hooton’s Manchurian Candidate?

On Radio Live

I am on Radio Live today with Willie Jackson, John Tamihere and Matt McCarten.

Listen in from 2pm.

Pay your tax then we will listen to you

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.

Will he get 1000 votes?

John Minto is not popular. He works hard at not being popular. The good news is the people of Manukau East can tell him exactly how unpopular he is on 26th of November.

A popular, likeable guy like Matt McCarten with hard left views won only 849 votes in the Mana By Election. The unpopular John Minto running in a general election will do well to get as many as Matt did.

Maybe this will provide him with a reality check that shows that his dated rhetoric is not relevant today. Unfortunately he did not run years ago because his dated rhetoric has never been relevant to New Zealand.