Contradiction

Ministry of Social Development: 8% of New Zealanders are in poverty and live in “severe hardship”, and 7% live in “significant hardship”.

Minister of Social Development, Ruth Dyson: There is no hardship in New Zealand, and those who say that are against the workers, and need re-education, because there is no hardship in New Zealand.

A confidential government report shows that some beneficiaries are living in significant hardship, despite the Working For Families programme and other social assistance.

The 2007 Ministry of Social Development report used figures from the 2004 Living Standards survey to analyse the situations of beneficiaries living in poverty.

The report says 8% of New Zealanders experience severe hardship and another 7% experience significant hardship.

Beneficiary families with dependent children had lower living standards in 2004 than they did in 2000.

And it says while Working For Families has helped those with jobs, those relying only on benefits are struggling.

The value of benefits relative to average earnings is lower now than it was in 1991.

The report says there have been significant price shocks for beneficiaries this year, with the cost of housing, power prices, transport and credit services all rising more quickly than the consumer price index.

Minister’s response

The Social Development minister, Ruth Dyson denies the claims.

She says the benefits of the Government’s Working For Families package for low-income families are yet to be fully realised.

Radio New Zealand

I’m very happy that Gareth Hughes is standing as a Green Party candidate in the 08 election. One of the nice things about New Zealand is that you tend to know everybody, and I’m very proud to have worked with and known Gareth, and hope strongly he makes it into Parliament. He’s someone that empowers and inspires me. He’s got an outside chance.

He delivered a speech to the Young Labour conference in April, and it’s a inspirational reminder of why I support the Greens, and delivers the same message I’ve made clear in the last few posts, if in a perhaps more conciliatory manner. We can’t keep going the way we’re going - it’s unsustainable in every sense. I hope that he got a warm reception.

Tautoko, e hone.

I appreciate Jordan Carter’s response to my blog post on the ETS. While we disagree on a fair number of issues, I always feel like I can have a intelligent conversation about things with him, and that he’ll answer honestly what he thinks, even when this doesn’t flatter Labour.

I thought that my response was harsh, but not unfair. I don’t like taking pot-shots at people, and wouldn’t have written it if I felt I was doing so. It was written out of frustration however, and I normally try and keep posts of frustration succinct - short rants are bad enough! The price for this however is that I didn’t get the chance to go into the detail I would have liked about my suggestions. I’m accused of being unreasonable, of wanting the pure driven snow in climate related policy, rather than dealing with than the more muddy reality.

There are a few climate related things that the current Government deserves credit for. The thermal moratorium is one. I’ve congratulated the Government in the past on my blog for doing so, and will do so again for things that deserve recognition. This morning Frog has revealed Government is considering ending the moratorium however…

Labour is constrained. Of course. But Labour is constrained in large part because of years in which it has consistently resisted making changes which would have created room to move on climate.

Take electricity prices for example. If you decide to put electricity into an emissions reductions instrument straight away, prices will rise, and people will be pissed off. They’ll be forced to use less electricity and endure cold winters, and their mood and health will suffer. The public, already struggling with interest rates, rising food and transport costs, and much else, will tell you they’re not happy, kick you out, and you’ll have a National Government, which will be worse for the climate and worse for people sitting in cold houses. I’m opposed to measures which hurt ordinary New Zealanders - I’m a environmentalist, not a sadist.

So what is my suggestion to this particular problem (and that of the Greens and others, who have been advocating this since 1999 and been ignored since 1999)? Insulation. Most of New Zealand’s houses are extremely poorly insulated. I count among my friends Swedish architects who’ve lived in Wellington - and their complaints about New Zealand’s cold houses are manifold. I know what its like to have the glass of water on your bedside table freeze overnight. Until recently, proper insulation was a mere afterthought for most houses.

By providing insulation you:
a) make people warmer and more comfortable and happier with their situation (and thus more likely to vote Labour)
b) reduce their heating bills
c)improve their health
d)reduce their doctors bills
e)reduce costs and strains on the health system from preventable diseases
f)improve Maori health and reduce the gap in life expectancy
g)reduce demand for electricity
h)reduce the strain on the national grid and the need for new generation capacity
i)and finally, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions
j)and means your Kyoto obligations are reduced, saving taxpayers money (I have no idea how much - it could be substantial, it could be insignificant)

The Government doesn’t have the money to insulate every house in NZ at once - the demands on a Government’s budget are essentially limitless, while money is quite limited. So you target this initiative to those who need it most first, with the promise that it will continue and eventually everybody will have insulated houses. You start where it’s coldest, probably Southland. Those who want it sooner will receive a partial subsidy and can pay for most of it themselves.

I should note that $1 billion would pay for 100,000 homes (at $10,000 per home - I have no idea if this is realistic, it could be half this, or twice this for all I know). This amount is half the price of a new tunnel, which will do nothing for the health of New Zealanders, and increase our ballooning greenhouse gas emissions.

I could do the same exercise for other potential initiatives - giving people money to go out and buy themselves a bike, for example. How cool would it be for the Government to work with bike retailers to provide a subsidy for purchase or maintenance of bikes? Imagine “a bike for every New Zealander”. After all, we already massively subsidise car users - by spending billions and billions on roads. Or perhaps increased funding of public transport, to take a less radical idea.

There are many initiatives that would or could gather public support, or at least require the spending of little political capital (considerably less than the Government is currently spending on a pathetic ETS)

The point of this is that Labour has put the cart before the horse - you support measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions before you apply taxes. I’m not dumb enough to think that tackling climate change will be painless. Not every suggestion is sunshine and lollipops. I’m not suggesting that Labour would take every initiative the Greens suggest - just that it actually examine them seriously. Nor am I naive enough to think that a government inflicting pain on the population is electorally sustainable or something the Labour Party has any intention of doing. There are low hanging fruit, and the Government has been largely immune to advice on these issues for close to a decade now. The Government lies in a bed of its own making.

I have, for the last week, had Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’ stuck in my head. It kind of suits my mood. Or does it frame my mood? Who knows.

I do know that the anthem to unease pounded a little harder between my ears in the last few days after hearing of the NZ Government backdown on their Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Jordan Carter frames the ETS as a reasonable instrument for achieving the Government’s goals, and as something that will stop emissions growing. Which is true. The problem, however, is that this view strips the decision of all context, ignores the history that has led us to this point, and betrays a shocking ignorance of the realities of climate change. The current global emissions trajectory is higher than the worst case scenarios of the IPCC just a few years ago, and puts us on track to a climate trainwreck.

Here are some numbers.

• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992.

• The Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997.

• It is now 2008. New Zealand has the 18th highest emissions per capita. New Zealand’s emissions in every sector continue to grow. In 2005, they were 22.5% higher than in 1990.

• Transport accounts for 19% of NZ’s emissions. It will be left out until at least 2011.

• Agriculture accounts for almost 50% of NZ’s emissions. It will be left out until at least 2013.

• Industry accounts for 8.6% of NZ’s emissions. Many of the worst emitters will be exempted until 2018.
• Some will be exempted until 2020.

Doing something by the mid 2010s is, of course, better than doing nothing. That is to state the obvious.

Since 1999, Labour has consistently refused to enacting measures that would deal with climate change. It has deliberately done nothing at times. And importantly, measures that would shield the public from the cost of potential emissions reductions have been avoided. Just some examples include insulation for New Zealand’s housing stock (which by the way is a serious health issue, and an inditement on Labour) or efficiency standards for vehicles, supporting public transport and bikes, and building revenue neutrality into an ETS or carbon charge. There are a wealth of things which could be done without any real political pain, and potential political gain.

I like what Kathy, of Greenpeace has to say:

for the Government to act all Robin Hood and like it’s doing Betty in Fielding a favour is nothing short of farcical. Make no mistake, the people who’ll suffer the most from this extraordinary backdown are ordinary New Zealanders. Meanwhile who’ll suffer most in the long term from inaction on climate change? Oh, that’s right - that would be everyone.

I’m not asking for Labour to be the Greens. They don’t understand climate change, they have different priorities. I get that. I just wish… for too much apparently.

I sincerely hope the Greens refuse to support this legislation, and give the Government the kick up the ass it so richly deserves.

I’ve been in awe of Peter Murnane for a while now, but had forgot just how much he inspires me.

He’s somebody who for a long time has been willing to lay his body on the line against injustice. I remember hearing of how he’d spilled a litre of his own blood on the carpets of the United States consulate in Auckland. I’ve seen his unblinking support for a friend of mine who is very much gay and very much Catholic, and his public welcoming of Ahmed Zaoui. And now he’s taken a sickle to New Zealand’s contribution to the international war machine.

I can only assume that Helen Clark knew what she was doing when she labelled these acts as “mindless vandalism”. There was nothing mindless about this - it was very well thought out. Like her “haters and wreckers” comment on Maori opposition, this reflexive response shows a defensiveness towards about the questions these activists asking of the government, and her specifically: How did you end up as a pillar of this war machine?

Let’s not pretend otherwise. There may be some intelligence that can be used for civilian purposes, to the benefit of New Zealand, but the rationale for this instalation is to support the United States and United Kingdom in their military efforts.

We are responding to the Bush administration’s admission that intelligence gathering is the most important tool in the so-called War on Terror. This war will have no end until citizens of the world refuse to let it continue. The ECHELON spy network including Waihopai, is an important part of the US government’s global spy network and we have come in the name of the Prince of Peace to close it down.

I’m very much opposed to mindless vandalism - I find it hard to deal with those who either aren’t willing to either justify their actions, or who won’t think through the consequences. This was an act driven by love and compassion for the victims of a war supported by this facility.

The Ploughshares can be supported at Ploughshares.org.nz.

On the subject mindless vandalism, here’s the new clip from Justice, Stress directed by Romain Duris

Warning: heavy music, contains violence.

(When did dance music get so heavy? Check out this clip of Justice vs Metallica’s Master of Puppets)

Demonstration “Don’t Buy Kwila”: Saturday 3 May, Noon

Location: Botany Downs Pakuranga 500 Ti Rakau Dr (close to intersection with Irirangi Drive)

A further step in the campaign to pressure furniture stores to cease stocking products made from the tropical forest hardwood kwila.

Kwila is on track for extinction within 35 years if current logging continues. Almost all of the kwila products in Auckland are made from wood originating in West Papua- at the expense of local tribal communities.

There will be Street theatre - plus an additional costume for those who attended our last demo!

Please contact Maire: maire@clear.net.nz to offer car pooling or to ask for a lift and please let others know.

Is there anything better than a beautiful ocean, pizza, wine, and good company?

Enough to make you forget for a few hours the disturbing reality that awaits you on your return.

Only 1 percent of the China’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union…

…[the] worst-case situation now looks wildly optimistic. Last year, China burned the energy equivalent of 2.7 billion tons of coal, three-quarters of what the experts had said would be the maximum required in 2020. To put it another way, China now seems likely to need as much energy in 2010 as it thought it would need in 2020 under the most pessimistic assumptions

from the IHT.

I’m swamped with bad news, overloaded by newspapers and websites from around the world. In the last few days I’ve read that the methane stored in the permafrost has lost its permanence, the forests of British Columbia are now in a serious decline, March was frighteningly hot (in a La Nin~a year), emissions in 2007 were stunningly high, and much much else of interest.

Sometimes it’s so important to just leave ‘the world’ - this horrible beast that we’re creating, behind. In the words of James Lovelock, “enjoy life while you can“.

I was going to write about Anzac Day, but Deborah has already written, better than I think I would have.

If we truly want to honour the dead, then our resolve must be to make it stop. No more deaths of young men and young women in battle. That is the memorial that the ANZACs deserve.

It is also the memorial that my great-grandparents deserve. Not everyone supported the Great War, and then the Second World War, or wars before or since. Some were very much opposed, and willing to wear the consequences.

Never again.

I thought Zoolander was a parody?

Evidently not.

Incidentally, the song background song is Sixteen Tons, by Merle Travis. The song is about the bondage system companies imposed on miners, a system that wasn’t broken until after decades of bitter fighting between unions and companies (backed by the strong and violent arm of the state and the law).

Join the Climate Contingent
To Stop the Sell Off of Public Energy in NSW

Join the Climate Contingent for No Coal
At the rally organised by Unions NSW outside the NSW ALP Conference
Saturday May 3 at 9.30am
Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney

Iemma and Costa are selling off our climate future – planning to hand 37% of NSW’s greenhouse gas emissions to the private sector.

Facing massive opposition from the community and environmentalists, workers and unions, and with 650 of 800 Delegates to the NSW ALP Conference poised to oppose privatisation, Costa has pledged to forge ahead regardless.

Allowing private, profit-driven corporations to control NSW’s biggest source of domestic greenhouse pollution would be an unmitigated disaster for the climate. Iemma’s plan is designed to encourage private corporations to build a new baseload power station, significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Iemma and Costa are misleading the community and workers on the real cost of the sell-off of our energy: selling off public control of our climate future.

The privatisation of electricity in Victoria saw electricity prices skyrocket to an all time high, hundreds of jobs sent offshore, and kept the world’s most polluting coal-fired power stations in operation – an experience echoed across the world.

The NSW coal-fired power stations up for sale are among the most polluting in the world - the Eraring power station emits over 20 million tons of CO2 each year. Privatisation of such stations will ensure that we continue down the coal-fired path of climate change.

Private electricity retailers would have a financial imperative to increase demand for electricity, increasing our state’s greenhouse pollution. This is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. We need a moratorium on coal-fired power stations, and we need to start phasing them out. Phasing out coal, and cutting unsustainable energy demand, will not be driven by profit-motivated companies. It requires strong government intervention.

Environmentalists support the union movement’s mobilisation to fight the privatisation plans. We agree the plan threatens the rights of working people across NSW, and our right to affordable electricity. It is a major setback to efforts for serious action on climate change.

Join us on Saturday May 3, to hold Costa and Iemma to account.

If you have ideas, input, or want to join us, please contact
Holly Creenaune and Beck Pearse at Friends of the Earth Sydney - holly.creenaune@foe.org.au / 0417 682 541
beck.pearse@gmail.com / 0405 105 101

http://www.stoptheselloff.org.au/

P.S. In February, Costa even said he didn’t care if he was expelled from the ALP for pushing privatisation. Let’s send off our sell-out Treasurer with the public party he deserves! We’ll have a giant farewell card, streamers, as well as coal costumes, huge banners and more!

Get out your diaries, and write in the Farewell Party for Coal-Crazy Costa. Hope to see you in the Climate Contingent on May 3 at 9.30am outside the Convention Centre, Darling Harbour.

Camp for Climate Action, 10-15th July 2008, Newcastle Australia.

For Further information, email maire@clear.net.nz

I rarely agree with editorials in the New Zealand Herald, and rarer still is my need to blog about it*. But a recent comment by Parekura Horomia suggesting that 20,000 New Zealand children go to school hungry every day because they’re trying to stay “trim” made me as angry as I’ve ever been with the current New Zealand Labour-Coalition Government**.

I expect a Labour Government to have priorities, and to ignore issues that are close to my heart when they are inconvenient for them. Addressing climate change? Taking a stand on foreign human rights issues? Those things aren’t the core business of the Labour Party. But neglecting poor children?

From the Herald editorial:

As subsequent reports revealed, recent surveys show half of Maori households are sometimes, or often, running out of food. One in five Maori families is sometimes or often using food banks. Forty per cent of Pacific children go to school without breakfast…

These figures aren’t abstract. Children without food have slower physical and mental development, are more vulnerable to illness, struggle in school, and equally importantly, are hungry . Food is a human right. In a country as rich as New Zealand, this is especially so.

This isn’t the only news item of its kind that has struck me in the last week. Of a similar nature was the Government’s move to online Lotto, with a limit of $150 per week. Lotteries are a tax on the gullible, those who are looking for the hope of better things, and the poor are often both.

Instead of viewing comments from the Greens and Maori Party (who raised this particular issue) as issues to be addressed, the Government’s response is all too often to defend the indefensible. While there are things that the Government has done that I am proud of, these would have happened with much less difficulty had the the Government not been beholden to a pair of reactionary support parties, racist and right-wing respectively.

At this stage I don’t care whether the Labour Party forms the next government. Michael Cullen asked this weekend whether they have “the right to lead [...] for a fourth term”.

Yes, the National Party is worse…

Cullen tells us

To win this year’s election we have to do just one thing: to make sure the people understand the difference between Labour and National.

Give me a break. Is it wrong to want more than simply centrist-not-the-National-Party-Government?

I don’t want greater social inclusion - I want full social inclusion, and this means food for every hungry child, working family or not. I don’t want “meeting our Kyoto obligations” - I want the emission cuts necessary to avoid disastrous climate change, and shutting down our coal industry.

At the moment the Labour Party is stalled, caught between progressive and managerialist elements, and sandwiched by their support parties. I don’t see them going anywhere substantial in the next three years. Perhaps three years in opposition will iron some humility into them, and allow them to refocus on truly substantial*** changes to the structure of New Zealand. On the other hand, give them three years and perhaps they’ll spend the entire time complaining about National, and when returned to power use undoing National’s changes as their agenda for the first term, and soft 3rd way managerialism thereafter.

Spare me a Labour Government. I want change.

*although the editorial lingers on the issue for a while, only to segue into attacking the Government for its coalition partners.

**Yes, I’m an anarchist, and talking about other people who make decisions for us creeps me out. But I don’t think anarchists should completely disengage from these institutions of power.

***Of course, I mean substantial by the standards of political parties, rather than anything truly radical. Radical changes can only be effected outside parliament, by building systems for us and by us. Asher talks about this, and I still haven’t blogged an adequate response.

Wow. Powers of Ten, set to the Thin White Duke remix of The Killers ‘Mr Brightside’. Edit:  I’ve just realised the soundtrack will either enhance or detract from your viewing pleasure - the original can be found in all its glory here.

And not surprisingly, this makes a lot more sense.

Hattip Queen Emily.

In the absence of blog posts, here are some things I wish I had time to read.

N. Pepperell’s brilliant critical theory blog ‘Rough Theory‘.

Jeff Vail’s systems, geopolitics, and much-else blog ‘Rhizome‘.

The weird and beautiful ‘The Madcap Laughs‘.

And the group blog of  wonderful NZ feminists, ‘The Hand Mirror‘.