Selection at Te Atatu….


"The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where the stand in times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Just over a hundred years ago the main transportation was still the horse, the first bi -planes had just flown, most people did not have water closets, refrigeration, hot and cold water, the manual typewriter was only just starting to be used in business, communication was by letter or telegraph.

The ideas of Karl Marx were only just beginning to be influential & we had yet to receive the geniuses of Freud and Yung and other great thinkers who have revolutionized family structures. The debates over Adam Smith’s theory of wealth had yet to be decided in the modern context.

If you go forward 20 years: the Crash leading to the Great Depression was caused by Governments around the World contracting the supply of credit by job cuts and program cuts. The stock market crash was enhanced by, and the ability of, tele-printers to quickly communicate stock loses thus setting in a general panic.

Another 15 years: saw the A Bomb and beginning of jet travel after the greatest loss of life in human history - the Second World War.

The current situation is that we have warfare of sorts by powerful corporations against the People—and the present age now has computer, TV, texts, mobile, instant surveillance: and mankind is no happier and struggles to earn a living and maintain a family.

Having changed from simply working with ones’ hands and raising nuclear type families we have blended, same-sex and solo parents, and importantly can’t turn the clock back.

We also have:

a rise in violence and suicide
more emphasis rather than less on what can the government do for us
prison funding rivaling other areas

The Social Democratic movement was challenged by economic rationalism 20 years ago and has suffered, in my view, from several types of identity crises. Labour in Australia and NZ took on much of the cloak, if not the rhetoric, of economic rationalism ultimately leading to free markets. Cheap consumer goods and cheap train engines have eroded real jobs, many evaporating, or being exported other places in the World where labour is more pliable.

In NZ and Australia, currently we educate the elites of countries which have passed us by economically.

It is no wonder when Maori see all this, they want their own party and access to,
& retention of their lands/seas

But the Maori Party is in danger of being elitist when they generally support the National Government which passes an ETS subsidized by those least able to afford it, and continues to cut jobs which means an attack on us all. Separate Maori control of welfare is meaningless when the reason so many are on the welfare rolls is simple lack of jobs.

Government cuts to services means less money in circulation which was the mistake in the Great Depression

NZ Labour needs a ten point plan:

To deal with Maori as equals and acknowledge the need to reconcile over the Foreshore

To deal with the effects of overfishing & climate change on our Pacific neighbors by looking on PI as our not so distant family with more flexible immigration

To rebuild community structures

To rebuild the tax system to give incentives to the less well off

To devise an industry plan to promote and build locally owned manufacturing in conjunction with joint investments

To buy back elements of our banking and savings system

To retain control over our mining and resource sector

To end the raw material aspect of the primary export sector which has not changed much in 100 years

To cap spending on corrections with certain funding for preventative and alternative measures
And to properly fund legal aid which is at a fraction per head of what NSW spends.

To under write our family structures with tax, protection of the family home ~
Giving time to parents

Underpinning this is the recognition that economics should serve the people, and repression will only entrench the gap between the rich and poor.

It with this in mind that I offer myself, having recently rejoined the NZ Labour Party, for selection at Te Atatu.

© Scoop Media