Gone

A brief list, not. But also not a full list of all that has gone since National took office.

Research and Development Tax Credits, presenting the biggest tax increase ever to NZ business
Fast Forward Innovation Fund
Emissions Trading Scheme
Billion dollar retrofitting of houses
Proposal for huge state house building project
Funding to Community Housing Aotearoa,
A billion dollars every year. (This amount to be borrowed every year and given to the most wealthy, described as tax cuts)
Employer contributions to Kiwi Saver
Employment rights for employees in firms of 20 or fewer staff during first 90 days
Plans for urgent upgrading of Kiwi Rail
Options for only healthy food in school canteens
Biofuel percentage in petrol
Legislation to ensure coal and gas generators are not built
Research for equal pay for female Social Workers
Security of the Commerce Commission
Parts of Resource Management Act
Security of the Cullen Fund
High level elected public officials
Plans for early intervention
Film fund
Funding for Dyslexia
Funding for special needs
Community Education
Mayoral Task Force for jobs
Enterprising Community funding for jobs
Jobs in Ministry of Social Development
Unit for sexually abused children
Jobs in Ministry of Ag and fish-biosecurity
Tertiary Ed Commission jobs
National Library jobs
NZ Post jobs
Regional Fuel Tax
Enviroschools jobs
Legal Aid Funding
Training Incentive Allowance
Misson On (Now Misson gone)
$37M from health promotion services
$2.3M cancer control
$4.8m Lets get checked diabetes programme
$3M Heart budget
Ability to resit NCEA more than once gone
Apprenticeship funding
ACC Physiotherapy Funding
Signalled $50M cut to teacher staffing budgets for state schools from 2010-equivalent to 700 teachers
Funding to Auckland's combined Beneficiaries Union
Slashing of tertiary funds used for service delivery being salaries
Slashing of tertiary Tripartite Funding
Professional Development for teaches $35.779M removed
School Support Programmes $6.005M removed
Curriculum Support Programmes $11.701M removed
Pathways to Partnership Funding slashed.
Funding reduction to Environmental groups

and at least 1000 people losing their jobs every week.

Whaleoil exposes National MPs as source

The ugly face of the National Party has inadvertantly disclosed that National MPs are using him to spread its lies and smears.

He says:

MPs I have spoken to tell me that her favourite line is to describe herself as something other than a Labour supporter. It appears she makes a habit of trying to befriend National Party MPs.

So National MPs spread smears that are too sleazy for them to put their own fingerprints on by drooling all over Whaleoil.

John Key should disclose how many other unscrupulous smear campaigns he has begun by spewing his bile all through this slug.

There is no excuse for National using this ugly disgrace for its publicity.

Ugly face of the National Party

As we saw last week in the Richard Worth scandal, Whale Oil is now an enorsed spokesman for the National Party. And the ugly face of the National Party is trying to argue that the Progressives don't exist because we have been out campaigning for the Labour candidate in Mt Albert.

The irony of saying the Progressives don't exist is that Prog Blog just renewed financial membership this month. He couldn't be more wrong. The financial membership of the Progressives is probably the most up to date of any party. Can't speak for the whole country, but Prog Blog is very happy with membership in Auckland at least, which is well up on last year.  If National really wants an audit of financial members, bring it on.

The Progressives publicly endorsed the Labour candidate - because we made a central plank of the election campaign last year that Progressives would work closely with Labour, our priority is to elect good people to parliament, and we want to stop National doing more damage to our country. That was a decision the whole party participated in at our meetings.

Everyone of the people the ugly face of the National party references is a proud member of the Progressives. Not one has renounced it. They are proud to work closely with their Labour colleagues. They are proud to work hard to stop National.

What we are really seeing here is an ugly National Party that hates democracy. This is a national Party that can;t stand to see its opponents working together, because co-operation is anathema to National. And they are touchy because they are getting torn to pieces in Mt Albert.

Good job.

Why is National afraid of the progressives?

The Herald on Sunday and Kiwiblog have shall we say, a symbiotic relationship: Kiwiblog writes a silly post saying the Progressives shouldn't exist, the Herald repeats it, implying that Matt Robson - who hasn't been an MP for four years - is somehow using taxpayers money to campaign against National in Mt Albert. Then Kiwiblog writes up this absurdity as if it were somehow valid.

The point David Farrar tries to make is that there is some similarity between Jim Anderton and Alamein Kopu. But there is no comparison. Anderton won an electorate seat. he competed for votes, and won more than United Future who are in government with National. Not much sign of National's talking point author, Kiwiblog, attacking United Future.

If National now want to reverse the last election result, then Prog Blog would be enthusiastic (ahem), but realistically the people voted and for the next three years we have their verdict. That verdict returned Anderton and therefore the Progressive Party to parliament.

The raving of the right against the verdict of the people is very strange when it is the same verdict that made National government.

What Kiwiblog is trying to do say the result of the last election is somehow invalidated by the result of the next election, which hasn't even been held. This is ridiculous.

Prog Blog's comment on the budget

Check out this:

Tax cuts are not tax cuts unless they are accompanied by matching spending cuts -- otherwise they are merely tax deferrals, taxes are just pushed into the future with interest added. 

...

Spending increases financed with debt instead of current tax increases are tax increases, with the taxes to arrive at a future date.

John Key and Bill Engish are tax raisers! oh the irony.

If they are going to raise taxes - couldn't they spend the money on something, uh, worthwhile? Something that would maybe create some jobs?

Great choice for Labour in Mt Albert

The Labour party has apparently selected David Shearer as its candidate in Mt Albert.

This is a spectacularly good choice.

He has a good cv. An excelent cv. He is currently second in charge at the UN in Iraq. The world knows he is qualified. He is part of a rejuvenation on the left. The other parties - National, Greens and Act - are all recycling MPs. Why would you vote for someone who is already an MP?

There were some very high quality candidates there - and three or four of them are headed for parliament, Prog Blog thinks. Shearer is great for nation-wide profile in a by-election.

The right have been panicked about him. They know he is a strong choice,. On that: It is nonsense to say he supports privatising the army. You know someone has a weak argument when they have to lie to make their point. National has been lying about Shearer and privatisation. Shearer said, in a think piece for a policy discussion organisation, that in a catastrophe like Srebinica where the Dutch government knew it couldn't prevent an impending genocide, why wouldn't you put anyone in who could stop the rape and murder of civilians? If you have to pay them so what? It's better than genocide and it avoids brining international assistance into disrepute - as happened when the West stood by and watched the murders in Srebinica of 8000 people. Innocent people.

Matt McCarten, who never misses a chance to distort something the Labour Party says, opposes Shearer's view. No surprise there. He also supported the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Srebinica - he blamed the Moslems and said at the time the world should be supporting the socialist-in-name murderers. What does he think the world should have done - send in our own army? Nope, he strongly opposed that. Or support Shearer's alternative? Nope. That only leaves supporting the genocide. The other weak evasions were all tried in Europe at the time, and didn't work.

Shearer has first hand experience of these horrifying events - and of weak international attempts top intervene. That is part of what makes him an excellent choice.

Shearer's ideas were written for a think tank. An organisation that exists to promote ideas. The right, and the stupid parts of the left, hate that, because they are opposed to ideas. 

ANZACS FORGOTTEN

Anzac day this weekend, when we will remember those young people who fought for our freedom in theatres of conflict far away. Those who returned set about with determinantion to create a Nation State with opportunity for all, in charge of its own destiny, without poverty, with free education and health care, healthy housing, effective transport, and an egalitarian heart. A heart to look after the vulverable and give support and encouragement to all citizens.
It is with great shame that I look at the current minority National Party in government with its support parties proposing to sell our military land, cut up parts of the conservation estate, lay off public service staff, destroy democratic representation in our largest city, remove protections from unhealthy food especially in schools, borrow billions of dollars to give tax cuts to the well off and all the rest of it.
The sale of military land will further increase the government debt as we will have to rent what we owned thus increasing expediture as well as the military's duty to the New Zealand public being placed at risk from interference. Laying people off will increase the cost to health as well as being less service for the public. Ecosystems will be lost and the climate suffer as trees are felled and carbon released from coal.
This is a very sad weekend to remember the ANZAC spirit and the determination to create a Nation that stood out from others for its strength to care for people, economy and environment

Mt Albert: There's only one issue

It is almost impossible to believe that a government would rip a
gigantic tear smack through the middle of Auckland by building an
enormous, six or eight lane motorway straight through the middle of a
settled residential area to complete the Waterview Connection.

Not when there is already a finished plan for a bloody tunnel to avoid
the fuss.

A tunnel: You don't have to demolish hundreds of homes if you build a
tunnel. You don't have to demolish parks where children play. You
don't have to divide settled, colourful communities in two.

And most of all: The Tunnel Is Ready To Go NOW. The motorway isn't.
The motorway holds things up for years and years. The planning
consents could take twenty years. While the consents hold things up,
the costs will blow out, and more right wing politicians will sit on
their thumbs in a panic about the cost.

Auckland is spewing traffic onto Mt Albert roads because of the work
the previous government did to get a decent connected motorway system
in Auckland. That system needs to be completed urgently. The Waterview
Connection is absolutely vital. And it is sorely needed as quickly as
possible.

National is against a quick completion. It put the tunnel on hold.

There is only one big issue at this election: the motorway on the
surface or the tunnel underneath.

National is reverting to form, holding up the tunnel: It is
truculently holding up development because the tunnel wasn't its own
idea.

National is wasting money by mistakenly thinking that delay saves
money. It doesn't. Costs go up while we wait, and the obstacles to
efficiently moving traffic round Auckland cost hundreds of millions of
dollars a year - plus there's the environmental cost of all the
exhaust spewing into the air from waiting cars.

National is arrogantly thinking of riding roughshod over what locals
want - they want a tunnel, by a 90% majority.

National is out of touch with the wishes and needs of the local
Auckland community.

ACT, Maori and Greens holding support

It is quite interesting how the ACT, Maori and Green parties are holding their support levels five months after the general election.

 

If this trend continues it could be a real sign that MMP is maturing and we are settling down to a pretty permanent five-party political system.

 

The Roy Morgan poll released today has ACT at 4 percent support (fractionally above its election result), the Maori Party at 4 percent (near double its election result) and the Greens on 9 percent (up from 6.7).

 

ProgBlog is not a particular fan of some of the policies of UnitedFuture or NZ First.

 

But the historical record is that NZ First's then five MPs played a critical role in enabling the establishment of the NZ Superannuation Fund in the 1999-2002 Parliament. In the 1996-1999 Parliament, NZ First forced the abolition of the anti-savings Super Surtax and it forced New Zealanders to confront the issue of our nation's weak personal savings culture (a prelude to KiwiSaver a decade later).

 

And UnitedFuture's then eight MPs saved MMP in the 2002-2005 Parliament

by offering critical confidence and supply to the Labour-Progressive coalition which was eight seats short of a majority.

 

Because of the way that "the daily news cycle" operates, with the emphasis on entertainment and therefore "conflict," there is no question that 99 per cent of voters in 1999 and in 2002 and in 2005 had no inkling of the positive roles played by either NZ First or UnitedFuture in promoting political stability and progressive policies. The Progressives suffered the same fate.

 

But it could be that in 2009, after five MMP elections, enough of the public have now cottoned on to the way proportional electoral systems work. If so, that suggests ACT, the Maori Party and the Greens can hope not to be penalised for being responsible positive governing parties.

 

Prime Minister John Key's MMP masterstroke of securing a policy cooperation deal with the Greens this week, meanwhile, helps explain why his party continues to sit at around 50 per cent support in the polls.

 

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2009/4371/

 

 

 

 

Wasting taxpayers' money on meaningless law-making

According to a New Zealand Herald story today not even one of the 423 prisoners currently serving life sentences would have been caught earlier had the National/Maori/ACT coalition's Sentencing and Parole Reform ("3-Strike") legislation already been enacted in this country.

 

Department of Corrections' data indicates that none of the prisoners would have been "struck out" before the offence that earned them their life sentence. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565592

 

National and its allies should concentrate on serious policies to raise our economic development instead of wasting taxpayers' money - and wasting Parliament's limited time - with expensive, meaninless stunts like the Sentencing and Parole non-reform.

 

Exporters and tourism earners are again being hit as the NZ Dollar continues on its roller coaster ride that makes business planning near to impossible - the Reserve Bank is stuck between a rock and a hard place as the flying Kiwi acts to tigthen aggregate monetary conditions even as we enter the sixth consecutive quarter of recession.

 

If the governing parties have nothing meaningful to say or do to try and secure that export-led recovery that we must eventually have and really want to respond to the public's desire for much tougher terms and conditions for prisoners - why don't they do something simple like make life mean life?

 

Make a life term mean the natural life of the prisoner, or set it at 100 years. So instead of the 15 years or so that you get inside for a double murder, make it 200 years. Instead of the 17 years or so that you get for the murder of a family of five - make it 500 years.

 

That would be tough, it would be popular, most people would think it fairer than the current system and, importantly, it would be simple to enact so allowing Parliament to get back to addressing what to do get the unemployed into work, to get those in work into acquiring new skills and to get our export performance up.

America the free

July 14 will be the 25th anniversary of the election of the 4th Labour Government, a government that had tense relations with the big nuclear military powers of America, the UK and France.

 

The main problem was New Zealand's decision to legally ban nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed military craft from entering New Zealand territory. A secondary problem was our opposition to nuclear testing in the South Pacific. A third problem, unstated, was that New Zealand had set a bad precedent - what if other democratic countries followed us and declared themselves nuclear-free?

 

So a quarter of a century ago New Zealand under a Labour government was suspended from the ANZUS military pact because of our bad behaviour.

 

The good news is that on Sunday it became clear that the U.S. is coming around to our way of thinking. The future of mankind is at stake, President Barack Obama said, "all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms".

 

It has been many years since the substance of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty has been on the international agenda. The commitment of its signatories is to reduce toward zero stockpiles of these weapons of mass destruction. Disarmament is a key pillar of the Treaty which only four States have so far refused to sign (India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea).

 

As for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, there are 44 states that possess nuclear technology that need to both sign and ratify it before it can take effect and only 35 have done so. The hold up, until now, is due to these nine: the United States, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/05/world/AP-EU-Obama.html?ref=global-home

 

After a long break, we are in 2009 getting real leadership from the United States on a fundamental global human rights issue.

 

NZ Crown accounts strongest in the West

With the exception of Norway, New Zealand's Crown accounts continue to come in as the strongest in the Western World which is very good news because it acts to protect all New Zealanders in these incredibly stressed-out global economic times.

 

Treasury reports today that the government's operating balance before gains and losses was a surplus of $49 million in the eight months to the end of February 2009 and the Crown's net financial asset position was positive $7.7 billion - equivalent to +4.3 per cent of NZ's GDP.

 

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/financialstatements/monthend/pdfs/fsgnz-8mths-feb09.pdf

 

In the USA, government net debt stands at over 50 per cent of US GDP, whereas NZ's government has no net debt - at 28 February our government's financial assets were valued at more than its financial liabilities to the tune of the equivalent of +4.3 per cent of NZ GDP.

 

http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3343,en_2649_34573_2483901_1_1_1_1,00.html

 

NZ's current position is not only exceptionally strong compared with the U.S., the UK or the Eurozone countries, but it is the strongest set of Crown books in NZ since records began in 1972 (when net Crown debt was around -5 per cent of GDP and compared with -52.6 per cent of GDP in 1992).

 

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/data

 

The National Government has inherited the best possible position to respond to the very challenging international economic conditions - their responsibility is to keep the Crown accounts strong and to ensure that every cent of new expenditure adds to the economy's strength while assisting those hurt by unemployment to find new employment - hopefully in export-orientated businesses ready to make the most of the next international upturn.