Helen Clark's greatest achievement

by Auckland union activist Two valedictories: 1. Paul Holmes gave his last ever morning breakfast show this morning before retiring. Special guest of honour was his mother. After hamming it up at the mike and asking in her best little old lady voice, "is this the thing I have to speak into", she claimed that Paul didn't inherit his ability with the spoken word from her, before she went on to disprove it. She spoke of the hard times her son had experienced when he first moved to Auckland to host the morning show for 1ZB. For the first few months of his new job 1ZB radio morning ratings were their worst ever. To loud applause from the live audience, she said, that if the 90 day bill had been in existence then, her son Paul's career would have probably been ended there. 2. On the same day, Helen Clark was asked on TV1 what was her greatest achievement of her 9 years as head of the Labour government. She seemed quite stumped. After some classic waffle, that there was just too many things to put into a book, she finally came up with the return of the unknown warrior to his tomb in Wellington. What? No ground breaking advances in human welfare, or justice, or social, or labour rights policy? No world leading initiatives to protect the environment? No raising the standard of living, for the majority, at the expense of the privileged minority? Nope, nothing like that comes to mind. Instead, one single overblown act of jingoistic pageantry. This belated effort to glamorise a historic imperial conflict was a popular move with militarists, army officers, jingo nationalists, war on terror supporters, military historians and Herald editorialist's. Unfortunately for Helen Clark these people's votes don't amount to a hill of beans and they probably all vote National or Act anyway.

Grey Power Disappointed Over Scrap GST Dismissal

Press Release: Grey Power New Zealand Tuesday, 29 April 2008 Grey Power is very disappointed that the Prime Minister has rubbished a proposal to exempt GST from food. Superannuitants are very adept at making every cent of their National Superannuation count but the ever-escalating costs for essential items such bread, milk, meat, electricity etc (with tax cuts now not expected until 2009) are making further "belt tightening" impossible. It would appear to us that this government puts a huge surplus in the economy before the electorate. We would remind the PM that many of our members now go to bed early during the colder months or at least wrap themselves in blankets to keep warm because of the high and ever-rising cost of electricity. It would therefore be helpful if the Prime Minister could advise our membership of an alternative for food. Grey Power is a nationwide organization with 79 associations and 90,000 members.

NZ Labour - a party without principle

A recent headline in The Guardian (18 April) reads: ‘Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime’. Here we have a ship full of arms for Robert Mugabe so he can repress the democratic revolt in Zimbabwe, supplied by the same Chinese regime which the Labour government in New Zealand has embraced in a free trade deal, held up by a dockers’ strike in South Africa which, if done in New Zealand, would be illegal under the Employment Relations Act passed by Helen Clark's administration in 2000. Makes you think doesn’t it? This series of events on the on other side of the world highlights just how far Labour is from a progressive politics grounded in basic human rights. It’s all about the almighty dollar, and to hang with basic principles like democracy and workers’ right to strike. To secure a free trade agreement with China that will boost the profits of Fonterra and other NZ companies, Labour is willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in China. And what chance that Helen Clark is going to loudly condemn gun-running by China to help a despotic Zimbabwe regime crush a broad based democratic movement? Not likely. This is the tangled world of pro-corporate profit driven politics without principle that the Labour Party has embraced. The party is no longer a progressive force in New Zealand.

Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime by David Beresford in Johannesburg The Guardian 18 April 2008 A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3m rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship's papers were in order. Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed "Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe's election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes. The carrier is listed as the Cosco shipping company in China. Continue

Beijing: Clark's gold(en?) medal

by ROD ORAM From Sunday Star Times Sunday, 13 April 2008 http://www.stuff.co.nz/emailafriend/4478130a1865.html With questions from UNITYblog. Rod : The very best thing about the free trade agreement with China is the overwhelmingly positive response from business leaders. No question about this. Rod: For the first time in more than a decade they are actually excited and ambitious about a big opportunity that will improve New Zealand's fortunes. If they follow through with bold strategies and excellent execution, they will start to solve our two biggest economic problems, one external and one internal. Rightly, the government is cautious about the impact of the FTA. It estimates it will generate some $350m a year in trade benefits plus a further $115m in tariff savings. This, though, would be an easy target to beat if business got serious about using the FTA to help New Zealand overcome its weak external performance... Similarly, the FTA could help overcome a serious internal weakness in our economy. As a tiny country far from our main markets, we are drastically short of the people, capital and plants we need to grow faster in more productive, less inflationary ways. By more productive, does Rod mean more exploitative? By less inflationary, does Rod mean less wage increases? Rod: The impact of inbound investment from China will be far greater. It already totalled $1.66b as of March 2006, and much more is expected. For example, the Chinese state electricity grid company is reported to be planning a joint bid with Cheung Kong Infrastructure, a Hong Kong company, for the Wellington electricity lines business being sold by Vector. Will the new Chinese bosses be able to run this contract with cheap indentured Chinese labour, outside New Zealand Labour Laws? Rod: The FTA will have a big impact on our internal economic constraints if New Zealand businesses grasp the opportunity of doing more with China in two ways. The first, is by investing there to get access to the country's abundant industrial resources. Once approved, New Zealand companies will be treated like domestic ones. Will the Chinese workers of these New Zealand companies also be treated in the same brutal manner as they domestic ones? Rod: So far only Fonterra, Nuplex, Skellerup, Glidepath and a handful of other companies have invested in China. Their commitment totalled $333m as of March 2006, the latest figures available. But the FTA will help open up China to many more businesses by giving them a bit more comfort and predictability. Will this greater comfit and predictability for business, be at the experience, of greater discomfit and insecurity for workers, here and in China? Rod: For example, Icebreaker, the Wellington-based clothing company, buys around one-third of the New Zealand merino clip. The wool is processed and made into garments - 1.5m last year - in a cluster of very large, high-technology plants in Shanghai, owned by overseas companies. Has anyone in the government ever investigated the conditions and pay of those working for Icebreaker in these Chinese plants? Do they even care? Rod: That's a very challenging business model that eludes most New Zealand companies. But if more of them began to see such opportunities, they would be far less gloomy than they are currently about their prospects in this tightly constrained domestic market. What are the domestic constraints Rod Oram says makes NZ companies gloomy, why doesn't he mention them? Could these constraints be environmental protections, union rights, labour laws, or safety regulations? Rod: Such a very rare sense of optimism emanated from the 190 business people who travelled with Prime Minister Helen Clark to Beijing for the FTA signing. Travel always works wonders for changing perceptions. The trip might change business perceptions of the prime Minister. Many of the delegates would have seen her up close for the first time. They would have appreciated her deep knowledge of many NZ businesses, her keen interest in their ambitions and strategic issues and her excellent skills communicating and negotiating on their behalf with foreign leaders. Why is a so called Labour Prime Minister negotiating on behalf of business, rather than on behalf of the workers who voted for her? When did our Prime Minister last show a keen interest in the ambitions and strategic issues important to workers? Or ever use her excellent skills communicating and negotiating on their behalf with anybody? Could it be that our Labour Government is only labour in name? Rod: A senior European trade diplomat who saw her in action on a New Zealand trade mission to India in October 2004 once told this columnist that Helen Clark was the best politician he had seen play that role, with the exception of the-then finance minister of Ireland. Our free trade agreement with China is testament to that. But does anyone know who Rod Oram is comparing Helen Clark to? Is this mysteriously unnamed finance minister of Ireland an extreme neo-liberal rightwing fanatic?

NZ Labour - a party without principle

A recent headline in The Guardian (18 April) reads: ‘Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime’. Here we have a ship full of arms for Robert Mugabe so he can repress the democratic revolt in Zimbabwe, supplied by the same Chinese regime which the Labour government in New Zealand has embraced in a free trade deal, held up by a dockers’ strike in South Africa which, if done in New Zealand, would be illegal under the Employment Relations Act passed by Helen Clark's administration in 2000. Makes you think doesn’t it? This series of events on the on other side of the world highlights just how far Labour is from a progressive politics grounded in basic human rights. It’s all about the almighty dollar, and to hang with basic principles like democracy and workers’ right to strike. To secure a free trade agreement with China that will boost the profits of Fonterra and other NZ companies, Labour is willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in China. And what chance that Helen Clark is going to loudly condemn gun-running by China to help a despotic Zimbabwe regime crush a broad based democratic movement? Not likely. This is the tangled world of pro-corporate profit driven politics without principle that the Labour Party has embraced. The party is no longer a progressive force in New Zealand.

Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime David Beresford in Johannesburg The Guardian 18 April 2008 A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3m rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship's papers were in order. Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed "Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe's election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes. The carrier is listed as the Cosco shipping company in China. South Africa's national conventional arms control committee issued a permit on Monday for the trans-shipment of the cargo from Durban to Harare. The head of government information in South Africa, Themba Maseko, said yesterday: "We are not in a position to act unilaterally and interfere in a trade deal between two countries." South Africa had to "tread very carefully", given the complexity of the situation in Zimbabwe, Maseko said. South Africa was not encouraging the purchase of weapons by Zimbabwe, he said, pointing out that there was no UN trade embargo against that country. But Tony Leon, the South African opposition foreign affairs spokesman, said the shipment was tantamount to "putting a fuse in a powder keg". Dockers in Durban were refusing last night to unload the ship. The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union's general secretary, Randall Howard, said: "Satawu does not agree with the position of the government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons. Our members will not unload this cargo, neither will any of our members in the truck-driving sector move this cargo by road." Despite international criticism, the Chinese government has been a longstanding backer of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe's authoritarian regime, supplying it with jet fighters, military vehicles and guns. China, or Chinese businesses, are reported to have sold radio-jamming devices to prevent independent stations from contradicting the state-controlled media, and have signed vital agriculture deals. Even the blue tiles on Mugabe's latest 25-bedroom mansion, reminiscent of Beijing's Forbidden City, were a gift from China. China has in the past used its veto at the UN security council to prevent the Zimbabwe issue from being raised, on the grounds that the country's problems were an internal matter. In Britain, William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said last night: "The international community must speak with one voice on Zimbabwe. We call on China, as part of that community, to suspend arms sales to Zimbabwe. "The Mugabe regime continues to deny the right of the people of Zimbabwe to choose their leaders. To supply arms to it at time when opposition activists are being intimidated and attacked, not only sends the wrong signal, but will harm the reputation of China. "In addition, it is time that neighbouring states like South Africa made clear that such shipments are not welcome." The Foreign Office was more cautious. A spokeswoman said that Britain backed an EU ban on arms sales to Zimbabwe and was encouraging other governments to do the same. The FO said it was monitoring the situation and seeking to verify reports about the ship's cargo. A spokesman for China's foreign ministry said it was aware of the reports about the shipment, but needed more time to look into the matter. The disclosure about the ship's cargo follows claims by an official from the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change that Chinese soldiers had been seen in the country. There were some signs yesterday that South Africa may at last be bending under international pressure, when the cabinet joined calls for the release of Zimbabwe's election results. Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, called on South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, to stand down as the chief mediator in the country's election crisis, as the US criticised African governments for lack of action on the issue. "It is time for Africa to step up," the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said. Tsvangirai told a news conference in Johannesburg: "President Mbeki needs to be relieved from his duty." Mbeki, is also under pressure from Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ruling African National Congress. Zuma has adopted a more hostile attitude towards Mugabe, saying that "the region cannot afford a deepening crisis in Zimbabwe".