Local Bodies

The health and resilience of our economy, our people and our environment are the important stuff any government should have as overarching priorities. The National Party is approaching eight years in government and its record in these three key areas is not particularly good. Our rivers are becoming increasingly polluted, we have one of the lowest GHG reduction targets and almost 1/3 of our children live in relative poverty. National Governments do not have any historical reputation for championing social causes or lifting environmental standards, but they survive because of the perception that they can be trusted to manage our economy. Displaying some rational economic vision and leadership is important for our ongoing survival as a nation in an often turbulent global economy. The Great Financial Crisis came about because of loose regulations and giving too much rope to financial institutions. New Zealand came through that crisis relatively unscathed but I would have thought th...

The Pulitzer Center is a collective of independent journalists dedicated to supporting investigative journalism on issues of global importance. New Zealand's Nicky Hager is a member. The Panama Papers has exposed one international operation (there may be more) that has been shifting secret funds belonging to corrupt politicians and dodgy companies to hidden trusts in a variety of tax havens. The politicians includes Putin and the King of Saudi Arabia  and some of the companies are involved in profiting from the Syrian war. Interestingly New Zealand is listed as one of the significant tax havens where 12,000 foreign trusts have found a home. We share the tax haven status with the likes of the British Virgin Islands and the Sychelles. The details exposed through leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca make frightening reading as possibly trillions have been hidden away to avoid tax or hide illegally gained funds. New Zealand i s referred to as being ...

The election of Trudeau  and rise of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders  are challenging the domination of Neoliberalism  within our Five Eyes allies . The cause of the downfall of economic liberalism is probably due to its success in shifting the world's wealth to a powerful few and alienating the middle class. The rise of socialist politics and the labour movements 100 years ago was driven by inequality and the blatant exploitation of working people and we are currently experiencing a similar scenario that is fueling another era of political change. For a period after the great depression Labour Governments dominated and Roosevelt's New Deal  created new hope. Savage's " applied Christianity " in New Zealand was a much needed shift to a more equitable sharing of New Zealand's resources. Good housing, fair pay and well resourced public education and health systems were seen as essential to building our social capital and lifting many families out of pove...

During the campaign in 2014 I attended a Southland Federated Farmers meeting in Invercargill and John Key happened to pop in and give an impromptu speech. Interestingly he had more to say about the Green Party than anything else. He told those present in blatant terms what he believed would happen to farming if the Greens got into Government and Russel Norman ever became the Finance Minister. He described slashed farm profits, stock being run off farms and unreasonable environmental regulations. More farmers heard about the Greens agriculture and economic policies from Key than from the Greens ourselves. An older woman in a rural community told me bluntly that I shouldn't even try to campaign in her community because "farmers don't like the Greens". The billboards that I put up on my own property in the same community barely lasted a week before they were ripped off and completely removed apart from the little bits of corflute that remained connected to the scr...

The National Government have made much of the fact that the $50+ billion it has borrowed was to maintain benefits and services after the GFC and to fund the rebuild of Christchurch. We have not been subjected to the level of austerity measures that the Greeks have suffered, however despite the constant claims from Bill English that funding is not being cut to essential services the reality is quite different. First of all the GFC had a minimal impact on New Zealand (probably less than the $17 billion hole left by the dairy crisis ). While Gerry Brownlee talks about the $16.5 billion Government contribution to Christchurch's recovery, one analysis of actual spending estimates its contribution so far is as low as $2 billion . Much has been promised but little delivered. It seems that much of the borrowing was needed to fill the hole in revenue from the Government's tax cuts (around $2 billion a year) and over $3 billion a year is needed to cover the increasing costs of sub...

The car equivalent of many rental homes. The rental and secondhand car industry wish to have the same support as landlords do for rental housing. President of the New Zealand Car Rentals and Sales Association (NZCRSA), Mr Dryvu Updawall, spoke about the inconsistencies between the two industries. "We have to ensure that our cars are properly warranted and fit for purpose before we can rent or sell them and yet landlords can rent any old dump," complained Mr Updawall. "People live in houses for extended periods but the time spent in our cars is often brief. The chance of an incident or illness from our cars, if they are roughly alright, is actually fairly limited compared to the effects on heath from living in a badly maintained house." Mr Updawall explained the importance of a profitable rental car industry and the value in providing cheap cars to poor people. "If only we could provide some old tired bangers that still basically function so that many...

Due to various national roles I have, and the fact I live in Invercargill, I spend many hours flying. The negative factor is my carbon footprint, but the positive is that I have great conversations with people sitting beside me who often have interesting jobs and life experiences. It expands my world view and enables me to find out more from people who have first hand experiences of areas that I am not directly connected with. I have just returned from the South Island Green Party policy conference in Nelson and on different legs of my journey I sat with two people who worked in the early childhood education (ECE) sector. One was a teacher nearing retirement and the other worked as an Early Intervention teacher and our conversations revealed some worrying trends. The woman involved with early intervention spoke about the growing cohort of children heading through the system with delayed language development. The reason for this is that many young parents do not engage their chi...