Choice and turnout

George Monbiot has an interesting piece in the Guardian today, arguing that working class people haven't turned to the right - they just don't vote:

The real issue is surely turnout. In the US it has been low for a long time: between 50% and 60% for presidential elections and 30% to 45% for mid-term congressionals since the second world war. In the UK it has slipped dramatically, from 84% in 1950 to 65% in 2010. An analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the collapse has occurred largely among younger and poorer people. "Older people and richer or better educated people … are now much more influential at the ballot box".

The major reason, the institute says, is the "'low-stakes' character of recent elections": the major parties "fought on quite similar platforms". The biggest decline in recent political history – from 1997 to 2001 – lends weight to this contention. In 1997 the young and the poor believed they faced a real political and economic choice. By 2001, Blair had moved Labour so far to the right that there was scarcely a choice to be made.

This is obviously US- and UK-centric, but we can ask the same question here. And the data seems to support Monbiot's thesis. Labour - which is supposed to represent ordinary people - offers essentially the same economic policies as National. Oh, there's some minor differences over asset sales and the fringes of employment law, but the core of flexible labour markets, independent monetary policy, free trade, and low taxes on the rich remains. Next election, we will be offered a "choice" between a party we suspect will fuck us over on superannuation, and one which has promised that it will. Some "choice".

Meanwhile, turnout has dropped, from 88.3% in 1996, to 74.2% in 2011. At the same time, the New Zealand Election Study shows a definite shift in who non-voters would have voted for. In 1993, those identifying with a major party were split evenly between National and Labour. In 1996, National was ahead. And since then, Labour non-voters have dominated, making up 32.2% in 1999, 40.2% in 2002, 42% in 2005, and 44.8% in 2008 (the results of the 2011 survey are still being processed). This pattern is not replicated across other left-wing parties, so the problem is not one of the wider left. Those giving up on voting and political engagement are self-identified Labour voters.

(MMP gives voters other choices as well, and looking at the trend in the Green vote over the last few elections, Labour voters who want real change are gradually taking it).

If Labour wants to halt this trend, it needs to offer a real choice, something better than the status quo with different managers. It remains to be seen whether its actually interested in doing so.

Reported back

The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back [PDF] on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. Despite overwhelming opposition from the public - 1,439 out of 1,448 submissions were opposed - the government majority on the committee has recommended that it be passed with only technical amendments. One of these enables the government to restore SOE status and protections by Order-in-Council. I expect issuing such an order over any surviving assets will be top of the agenda for the next government.

The select committee report includes extensive minority reports from the Greens and Labour critiquing both the bill and the select committee process. They're both worth reading. And if you agree with them and oppose asset sales, you can protest about it on Thursday when the bill comes back before the House.

A permanent dictatorship in Canterbury

When the government dismissed the elected councillors of Environment Canterbury, suspended elections, and replaced them with a clique of unelected dictators, they assured us that it was only a temporary measure. Once ECan's internal administrative divisions were resolved, elections would be held again, and normality restored - in 2013 at the latest.

Of course, they lied. Firstly, the move wasn't so much about internal administrative problems as ECan making decisions on water that National and its farmer-cronies didn't like. And secondly, they're not planning on returning power to the people anytime soon:

Former environment minister Nick Smith says Canterbury doesn't need another dysfunctional elected body making decisions about the region's important water resources. As a cabinet minister, he sacked elected Environment Canterbury councillors and replaced them with commissioners.

When their term expires next year, he hopes they will be replaced by a mixed council of elected and Government-appointed representatives.

In Ashburton on Thursday at a Federated Farmers water forum, he said there were some big water decisions ahead of Canterbury, including bulk storage and tapping into alpine rivers protected by Water Conservation Orders.

He said a fully-elected regional council making those decisions would result in the same "dog's breakfast" left by the previous council, with views polarised into urban and rural camps.

...and might act on the views of the majority of their voters, who want cleaner waterways, rather than those of National and farmers, who want to fill them with shit. And we can't be having that now, can we? So, the democratic right of Cantabrians must be overridden and undermined to ensure that National's farmer-cronies can keep on polluting.

Just another example of how this is an undemocratic, authoritarian government which does not respect the democratic rights of its citizens.

For green growth

Pure Advantage, a lobby-group of kiwi businesspeople interested in boosting the Green economy, have released a major report on New Zealand's Position in the Green Race [PDF]. Its both sobering and inspiring reading.

The sobering bit is how we have fallen down the international environmental rankings, undermining our "100% pure" image and degrading our quality of life. The inspiring bit is that we can change this, and do well economically into the bargain. Internationally, green growth and clean technology is hot, and potentially worth NZ$6 trillion. And we have some good opportunities to get a piece of that pie. We have world-leading expertise in geothermal energy and in agricultural research. We have an enormous potential resource for bio-energy and non-food-based biofuels. We have a strong aquaculture sector. And we have enormous potential for a green growth dividend by insulating our cold, damp houses and setting higher standards for buildings. Its an inspiring vision. The question is how we get there.

Unfortunately, on that front, things look a bit bleaker. From the case-studies, the major driver overseas has been government action, either by setting tough environmental standards (thus forcing innovation) or by direct financial incentives. National opposes both types of action - the first because its "red tape" which "slows down business", and the second because they'd rather spend the money on tax cuts for their rich mates. As a result, the report basically writes off government completely, and is instead looking for "corporate champions" to drive the shift. But again looking at the case studies, that hasn't happened anywhere overseas, and it is hard to imagine it happening here with our business management and its fixation on getting government handouts through policy change.

The good news is that Labour at least seems to be taking it seriously. They've already shown some interest in these sorts of measures (the Projects Mechanism for reducing GHG emissions, and the Biofuels Obligation), and Pure Advantage's agenda is right up their alley. Unless of course it falls prey to their internal hatred of David Cunliffe...

We need to shift the economy away from National's extractive model and towards a more sustainable path. There's some good ideas in this report on how to do it. And if this government won't listen, hopefully the next one will.

Something to go to in Wellington

Having shut down debate in select committee, the government is planning to push through its asset-sales bill under urgency on Thursday. And the Keep Our Assets campaign will be there to stop them:

When: 13:00, Thursday 14 June
Where: Parliament Buildings, Wellington

There is no public mandate for this. 1,439 out of 1,448 submissions were opposed. These assets are simply not theirs to sell. The message has to be sent: if they continue with this plan to loot the state for the benefit of their donors and cronies, then they will be turfed out of office in 2014.

Not very charitable II

First, we had pokie trusts lobbying against the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill, in violation of their charitable purpose. Now, they're pressuring grant recipients to do the same:

Pokie trusts are pressuring grant recipients to make submissions against MP Te Ururoa Flavell's reform bill, telling them if the legislation passes they risk funding cuts.

[...]

Letters from several trusts to grant recipients, including sport and community groups, ask them to make submissions against the bill before a June 21 deadline. Some provide pre-written letters for the groups to sign.

One grant recipient said the trust involved had phoned "pressuring us to send in our submission". "It does beg the question, are we jeopardising future consideration by not supporting them?"

This is a gross abuse of power, made all the more odious because what's at stake isn't whether these groups get money, but who gets the salary, expense account and kickbacks for doling it out. And here, we have supposedly "charitable" trusts fighting tooth and nail to protect their entirely parasitic place on the food chain. Which sounds like a damn good reason to get rid of them entirely, and give the job to local authorities.

New Fisk

Posters of martyrs in the market place say it all – and more are on the way

A bad idea

For once, I feel sorry for the police. All that brown-nosing, all that arse-kissing, all those journalists office's obediently raided and electoral crimes obligingly ignored, and what do they get in return? Threats of 20% pay cuts and the introduction of performance pay:

Police want to introduce performance pay and have told the police union some officers are overpaid by up to 20 per cent.

Rank-based and general salary increases would be scrapped and performance-based pay introduced.

[...]

In a letter obtained by Labour, association president Greg O'Connor said Police considered officers in bands A to D, as well as constables, were overpaid by as much as 20 per cent.

Police had funding for a three-year term and were offering lump sums and general adjustments to buy conditions off existing members, he warned.

Police also wanted to redefine remuneration structures so the majority of officers were restricted on about the middle of the proposed pay bands.

So much for "protecting frontline services". The police are about as frontline as it gets, and National is stirring up major industrial action there (and while police are forbidden to strike, there are other things they can do to make their displeasure known. Refusing overtime, for example). As for performance pay, it would create perverse incentives for teachers, but its absolutely toxic for police. Or do we really want police issuing tickets, conducting searches "for drugs", and arresting people just to make quota - or stitching people up to close cases quickly and get their bonus? For people who believe that its all about incentives, National really are surprisingly blind about the incentives they want to create. But then, for them the incentives are secondary; its really just about cutting costs.

Equality comes to Denmark

Denmark's Folketing has voted overwhelmingly in favour of marriage equality, becoming the eighth country in Europe to allow same-sex marriage. And again, I have to ask: when will New Zealand follow suit? Once, we led the world as a progressive nation. Now, we're lagging behind.

25 years nuclear-free

Today is a significant anniversary. Twenty-five years ago, on 8 June 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 became law.

The law bans the acquisition or manufacture of nuclear weapons within New Zealand. Not that that was ever likely, but its good to have it written down. More importantly, it bans the stationing and transit of nuclear weapons, and prohibits visits from nuclear-powered vessels. It thus marked a decisive break with the Cold War mentality which saw nuclear weapons as security rather than a threat to humanity. This caused an immediate crisis with the United States, and caused it to reveal its true face as a bullying hegemon interested primarily in keeping its vassals in line. But it has since become part of the bedrock of our foreign policy. Even the National party, always an eager servant of foreign powers (first Britain, then America), has come to accept it, and its repeal today is unthinkable.

But twenty-five years on, there is still work to be done. While the threat of their use has receded, the world still has nuclear weapons. We need to speak up louder for their elimination. We also need to further encourage the expansion of regional nuclear-weapons-free zones, particularly in the Middle East and Europe. Kiwis still want a nuclear-free world; our government should work for that.

Here we go again

The government is ending select committee consideration of its asset sales legislation six weeks early, in preparation for ramming it through under urgency:

Opposition parties say contentious asset-sales legislation could be passed under urgency because the Government fears the momentum that a citizens-initiated referendum is gaining – and the Government isn't ruling it out.

Parliament's finance and expenditure committee yesterday finished its deliberations on the Government's Mixed Ownership Bill to enact its plans to sell up to 49 per cent of state-owned power companies Mighty River Power, Meridian, Solid Energy and Genesis. The committee has spent the past month hearing from about 100 people mostly opposing the bill, after a total of 1400 written submissions were received.

Labour and the Greens claim National MPs on the committee outnumbered them to force an end to deliberations six weeks early and after only an hour of discussion. The bill was due to be reported back to Parliament on July 16.

Committee chairman and National MP Todd McClay said he expected the bill would now be reported back next week.

As noted above, the reason is pretty obvious: to get the bill passed before the referendum campaign can get enough signatures, and so present the public with a fait accompli. In the process, they're not even pretending to consider submissions. The message to the public is clear: the government doesn't care what we think. So, as we did with mining in national parks and school class sizes, we need to send them the sort of message that they can't ignore, and which puts them in fear of their political lives.

Meanwhile, the referendum campaign will continue, and it will get its 350,000 signatures and force a vote. Which will provide a clear public mandate against this looting of the state. It may not stop the first asset sale, or the second (though iwi may throw a few spanners in the works) - but it will ensure that the next government enacts strong protections against such asset stripping.

(And who knows, if the signal is strong enough, maybe Labour will grow a pair and promise that stolen assets will be renationalised at a loss to the thieves. Here's hoping...)

Golden Dawn shows its true colours

It was only a matter of time, but now Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has shown its true colours on live TV:

Greece's election campaign turned ugly on live TV: The spokesman of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party, after trading insults of "commie" and "fascist," lunged at two female left-wing politicians on a mainstream morning talk show, throwing water at one and smacking the other three times across the face.

The violent display reminiscent of trash TV, a week and a half ahead of crucial elections, stunned Greeks as they seek to avoid a catastrophic exit from Europe's common euro currency. A prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Ilias Kasidiaris, whose party alarmed Europe by gaining 21 of Parliament's 300 seats in Greece's inconclusive May 6 elections.

And in the aftermath, Golden Dawn supporters have apparently attacked two PASOK candidates.

make no mistake: Golden Dawn is not a "patriotic" nationalist party. They are a group of violent thugs happy to use violence for political ends. The question now is exactly how many Greeks really support that style of politics.

A rancid style of politics

Over on A Bee of a Certain Age, Deborah takes me (and others) to task for my immediate reaction to Paula Bennett suddenly popping up with a blurt about preventing child abusers from having more children: that it was a deliberate distraction, designed to agitate the talkback morons and get them ranting about something other than the government's hypocritical plans to increase class sizes while sending their own kids to private schools. Ouch. For the record, I don't think this is "a minor matter", or that "women’s rights are always tradeable". Its a revolting suggestion, incredibly intrusive into people's lives, and laden with some fairly unpleasant assumptions about class and race. You don't have to be a civil libertarian to see that allowing the courts to issue orders deeming people to be "unfit parents" and banning them from having children gets us into some very unpleasant territory, and raises the spectre of our very own "stolen generation".

(It is also utterly redundant. As pointed out in the Herald article, CYFS already has the power to intervene when they believe a child to be in genuine danger. So what does Bennett's proposal add? Nothing, other than stigmatisation and injustice. The only kids it "saves" are those who weren't in danger. So what exactly are they being "saved" from...?)

At the same time, I can't help but notice the convenient timing of this outburst, and suspect the government's motives in raising it. Andrew Geddis makes the case here, and it is a strong one: this is a government which is not only willing to consider creepy eugenics, but is also willing to raise them purely for PR purposes, to distract from other issues. No matter which way you look at it, that's a fairly rancid style of politics.

None of her business

One of the great myths of the monarchy is that it is neutral: the Queen supposedly stays out of politics and leaves it to elected politicians. Of course, its a lie:

The Queen has expressed concern for the future of ChristChurch Cathedral during a meeting with the Prime Minister.

[...]

[Key] said the Queen has had an enormous amount of correspondence from people in Christchurch over the fate of the Anglican cathedral, which he said is the centre of heartache for many over its demolition.

Mr Key said the Queen is clearly not an engineer so is not offering advice on whether it is the right move, but is interested in what is driving the issue.

The Queen may very well be concerned. But as monarch, it is not her place to express that concern. "The Queen reigns - but Parliament rules". If she wants to break that bargain, and go back to telling politicians what to do, then I think its time we dispensed with her services and ran her and her entire family out of town at gunpoint.

Addendum: To those saying "the Queen is also the head of the Anglican Church", I have two responses: firstly, that you can't wear two hats if one of them is a crown (by which I mean that the Queen's constitutional role, and her consequent need to be seen to be above politics, trumps any other role she may have). Secondly, she clearly wasn't speaking in that role - because if she had been, she would have been talking to her Bishop, the person who wants the Cathedral demolished, rather than our Prime Minister.

Anger works

The government has backed down on education cuts, and reversed its position on class sizes. Good. By their own actions Cabinet Ministers didn't believe the bullshit they were spouting, and expecting ordinary kiwi parents to swallow larger classes while John Key sent his kids to private schools specifically for smaller ones was never going to fly. For the government, it was either back down, or get rolled at the next election.

Meanwhile, this sends a clear message to voters: if you get angry, policy changes. But class sizes aren't the only thing we have to get angry about at the moment; the government is also planning to sell our assets. Time for a bit more public anger on that, I think.

Some good news

Palmerston North police have decided not to charge Tiki Taane for singing a song they didn't like. Which is great news. At the same time, the fact that I'm even having to type that sentence tells us that there is something deeply, seriously wrong with our police force.

How many times do we have to say it before they get it through their thick skulls? It is not a crime to dislike the police. It is not a crime to say so. We have freedom of speech in this country. Any police officer who disagrees with this, and puts their own pride and self-importance above the law, has no place in our police force.

I wonder what they talked about?

Yesterday, I blogged about the British government's policy of deporting Sri Lankan Tamils to torture, and in passing mentioned the presence of Sri Lankan head of state Mahinda Rajapaksa at the jubilee celebrations in London. So, guess who Rajapaksa got to sit next to at the Queen's jubilee lunch?

Rajapaksa was seated on the table directly to the Queen's left with Babli Sharma, wife of the Commonwealth secretary general; the Namibian president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, and his wife; and New Zealand prime minister, John Key, and his wife.

I wonder what they talked about? Did Key get any hot tips on how best to asphyxiate dissenters in plastic bags full of petrol? Or maybe whether it was better to hang them by the arms or the feet? Inquiring minds want to know.

A decent person would have refused to have anything to do with the head of a torture-state. But pretty obviously, Key is not a decent person. He's too obsessed with greasing up to the monarch to take a stand for kiwi values.

Kiwis support marriage equality

TVNZ released a poll last night showing that 63% of kiwis support same-sex marriage. This comes on the back of a ResearchNZ poll last year which showed 60% support. The message is clear: kiwis support equality. So why won't Parliament act?

There are a couple of reasons for this. The most obvious one is Parliament's demographics. From the ResearchNZ internals, there's a strong difference in views with age, with support at 80% among under 35s, but only 44% among over 55s. And guess which age group is massively overrepresented in our parliament? Old people. Guess which one is massively under-represented? Young people. The future may belong to us, but for today we're still in the clutches of old bigots.

(Support is also higher amongst women than men. But again, guess which group is systematically under-represented? Women)

With demographics like this, I think its fair to say that Parliament is going to be behind the public on this issue, and are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. Meanwhile, voters may want to consider how to get a more representative Parliament which doesn't so obviously privilege the views of old rich men over those of everybody else.

The second reason is fear. That one third of bigots? If the experience of decriminalisation, anti-discrimination, and Civil Unions is anything to go by, they're going to make a hell of a lot of noise in an effort to preserve their hate, and it will be extremely unpleasant for anyone who sticks their head up on this issue. Its understandable that no MP wants to go through that. And OTOH, stuff like that is one of the reasons we pay them so well. If they don't want to do their fucking jobs, and deal with the issues of the day, then they should fuck off and work in a bank. I'm not interested in paying MP's $140,000 a year (plus slush fund) to shirk their duties and dodge the issues.

Snailmail, the Police and the OIA

I was alerted today to a disturbing incident of the police demanding a snailmail address for a request made over the public OIA website, FYI. Someone had requested information on police identity badges, and been immediately asked to prove they were eligible to make a request. This is not the first time this has happened. A request for information on the Police's use of Automatic Number-Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology attracted the same response.

There's an obvious link between the two incidents. Both are requesting potentially controversial information (the first request seems to have been spurred by allegations that police at last week's student protest were not wearing badges; the latter involves a controversial technology with significant privacy implications, which the police may not want to discuss at this stage). Meanwhile, other requests for less controversial information (e.g. crime statistics, 111 services for the deaf and hearing-impaired) are answered immediately and without fuss. The pattern is quite apparent in the list of FYI requests made to police.

So, we have a case of the Police being unreasonable, and seizing on the fact that a request is made electronically (and requests an electronic response) in an effort to impede it and force the requestor to go away. But this also raises wider problems with the OIA and its ability to keep up with technology.

To put it bluntly, snailmail is dying. NZ Post is looking at cutting deliveries to three days a week. Meanwhile, more and more everyday business is moving online. I pay my bills online. I do my banking online. I buy my books and toys online. I actually sent a physical letter at the weekend, because I had to get a physical document to someone I didn't personally know, and a scan wouldn't do - but I can't remember the last time I sent one before that. And this trend is only going to get stronger. In this environment, insisting on a snailmail address isn't just mindlessly (or in this case, malevolently) bureaucratic - it is downright backwards, on the same level as asking someone for a carrier pigeon or their preferred telegraph code. And yet the Act apparently allows them to do it.

The short-term solution is to educate the police about the modern world, and their duties under the Act (in particular, a request being for "controversial" information is not a reason to impede it). In the longer-term, we need to look at the Act. One obvious solution would be to align the eligibility regime of the OIA with that of LGOIMA, which allows requests to be made by "any person". But then I suppose the Police would be asking people to prove that they're not dogs...

British government deports people to torture

The Guardian reports that the British government is deporting people to torture:

The British government is forcibly deporting asylum seekers who are then tortured in Sri Lanka, according to the testimony of one victim who was left scarred and suicidal after a brutal two-week ordeal.

The victim told the Guardian he was tortured over the space of 17 days after being deported from the UK last year. His torturers accused him of passing on to British officials information about previous beatings at the hands of state officials and other human rights abuses, to ruin diplomatic relations between the two countries.

[...]

Speaking through a translator, the victim, who wants to be identified only as Hari for fear of further retribution by Sri Lankan authorities, said that six months after he was deported, security personnel arrested him and beat him with rods, put petrol-filled plastic bags over his face and hung him by his feet with a nylon rope. Hari's back displays a welter of scars and the Guardian has seen medical reports supporting his claims.

There is a full interview with the victim here.

This is of course unlawful. It violates the Refugee Convention (not to mention the Convention Against Torture), both of which are given effect in UK law. But the politically-driven rush to kick out asylum seekers (lest they disturb racist Britons by being different) means that unfair decisions are made, and people are sent back to persecution and torture. As for the decision-makers, well, its not as if anyone is holding them to account for what happens to the people they deport. Morally, they're complicit in the crime.

And just to add insult to injury, Sri Lanka's head of state Mahinda Rajapaksa has been invited to the monarch's jubilee celebrations, and will be enjoying lunch with the Queen. You know people by their friends. And in the monarchy's case, their friends are torturers.