Robson: "Hollow Men" Pop Up Over The Ditch

ROBSON ON POLITICS
Matt Robson - Deputy Leader Progressive Party
24 October 2007

Hollow Men pop up over the ditch: From our Oz correspondent

The general election in Poland over the week-end delivered a new government and one of its first decisions has been to withdraw its troops from the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq.

Iraq is also proving to be a big issue in the Australian election campaign - to the benefit of the Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd, which also proposes disengaging from the Iraqi disaster zone.

In the Sunday TV night debate between PM Howard and Mr Rudd, Mr Howard’s past was a big handicap. Grilled by a panel of political journalists about his credibility in view of his record of broken election promises, he could only flounder and bluster.

On Iraq, just before the last election, John Howard said 'We believe our current commitment is appropriate and adequate and effective and doing a good job, and we have no proposals to increase it.” Within months of winning that election, the Liberal-National coalition government had instead increased troop numbers by 450, pledging an extra 40 armoured vehicles, effectively doubling Australia’s military commitment at the cost of A$300 million.

The Lib-Nats also emphatically denied they would make any changes to workplace laws prior to the last election yet the unpopular and misnamed "WorkChoices" programme was introduced the minute the right-wing government had the opportunity to do so after votes had been counted.

If the Liberal-National government loses the election to Labor in next month's election the two key reasons will be because the right-wing government misled the public about its plans to withdraw working families employment conditions and rights and the incompetence and lack of honesty over the war in Iraq.

Last week was dominated by the news that the Liberal Party maintains close relations with the Exclusive Brethren with two senior ‘elders’ having lobbyist passes, giving them access to ministers' and MPs' parliamentary offices. These passes were vouched for by senior Liberal MPs.

The Brethren fundamentalists also have an advertising account with a public relations firm that has close links with the Liberal campaign. The fundamentalist Brethren are currently under investigation by the Federal Police into the spending of A$370,000 on pro-Howard Liberal ads at the last election. This seems like it could be the tip of the iceberg of what may be happening at this election between the Brethren ‘brothers’ and Howard’s political campaign.

National's frontbench is the one that mis-ruled in the 1990s

There are lots of lessons for New Zealand in what is happening in Australia.

Most working families in New Zealand are also against the National-ACT agenda to cut into working people's employment rights and conditions.

National and ACT bitterly opposed the Progressive Party Bill to extend to working families an extra week's minimum annual paid leave. National and ACT bitteredly opposed this government's introduction, and extention, of paid parental leave entitlements. National and ACT also bitterly opposed our annual raising of the legal minimum wage.

Just look at the top tier of the National Party: Look at the names - Hon. Tony Ryall, Hon. Maurice Williamson, Hon. Bill English, Hon. David Carter, Hon. Lockwood Smith, Hon. Murray McCully, Hon. Nick Smith.

These Honourables were the government from 1990 until 1999 - they never introduced paid parental leave or protected working families' need to have an extra week to attend to family commitments. These Honourables have spent eight years in Opposition attacking our government's efforts to enhance the majority of families' interests - from KiwiSaver to NZ Superannuation, from lower doctors' visit costs to lower pre-school education charges.

Does anyone seriously believe that they will protect the gains in working conditions that a majority of families have made under the Labour-Progressive government?

http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=74

National is not behaving like an Alternative Government

But something really interesting is happening on the Opposition benches in New Zealand - and the media are completely failing to cotton on to it.

It is this.

National isn't behaving like an Alternative Government.

Think back to 1998 and 1999 when the Opposition at the time acted with absolute discipline when it came to the issue of what we would deliver if we were elected into government. We were extraordinarily careful about not over-promising. We were measured because we knew how hard it is in government to deliver to those that voted for you.

But what about National in 2007?

National is going around the country promising every lobby and sector group that it meets that it will deliver more than the Labour-Progressive government. If you talk to pre-school education providers, many seem to think a National-led government will invest more in their sector. If you talk to people worried about Police and Law and Order, they too seem to think National will deliver more. People working in sectors that serve the retired senior citizens, anticipate more support from a National-led government. So do the people that produce alternative energy sources, roading and construction and - to my amazement - even some Maori groups in Auckland seem to anticipate more investment by a National-led government.

The wave of expectation is being deliberately promoted by National M.Ps. - many of them signing off on articles (near identical, with only the name of the author changed) that appear all over the nation from the Wanganui Chronicle to the Timaru Herald and everywhere else.

The premise of these articles is that "the Government" (it is all the government's fault) is "hogging" an "$8.7 billion surplus". Only National can be trusted to give it back.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10471235&pnum=0

Of course, National's line is not remotely accurate - the dollar figure for the accrual-accounted surplus includes the hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been allocated to the NZ Superannuation Fund, the tens of millions of retained earnings at State Owned Enterprises that the government itself doesn't have any access to and the hundreds of millions this government is investing in roading, schools and hospitals - all long ago committed and accounted for.

We need these investments in our infrastructure in order for companies based in New Zealand to have a chance of holding their own in the world - surely not even National is suggesting these investments should cease so that it can instead "give the money back" to taxpayers.

But never mind the mere inaccuracy and dishonesty of National's propaganda.

The important thing in terms of what it means for the politics of New Zealand is that National's leadership clearly does not expect to win next year.

If they thought they were going to win, they would not fuel a whole lot of expectation around unachievable, unaffordable goldrushes and magic wand solutions the likes of which we haven't seen in a generation.

If National's leaders seriously thought they had a chance of winning next year, they'd be acting in a disciplined way to get their M.P.s to reign in expectations around a small set of achievable "deliverables". One day a senior journalist is going to click on the significance of National MPs' implied promises of big spending plus big tax cuts and figure out what it actually means.

NZ has a justice system with integrity

In 2007, we have the most solid legal system in the world.

Just think about the enormous media-led campaign of mass misinformation and hysteria that surrounded the democratically-elected M.P. Ahmed Zaoui from the moment he arrived at Auckland Airport and declared who he was and then applied for refugee status.

In spite of the truly gigantic efforts of some media to have him deported, all via their "unnamed" sources type "exclusive" stories, the legal system looked at all the facts and, after a very long time, delivered its verdict.

This week we have seen people arrested by the Police acting under firearm, and perhaps anti-terrorism, laws.

The use or the threat of the use of terror as a political weapon directed at innocent by-standers is an evil crime. It is a crime whether it is practised by governments or by non-government groups and individuals.

If anyone was planning terror against civilians, then they are criminals, pure and simple. If the Police have got it wrong, there is little reason for any of us to doubt that our legal system will, in time, get to the facts - all of the facts.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10470968

What can we do to reduce harm to and by young from alcohol misuse?

Also in the news this week was the story of a young university student attacked and very savagely assaulted by 14 to 17 year olds that had been seen, according to the media, "drinking" outside the local dairy.

What are we supposed to do as a society to try and minimise the misuse of alcohol and other drugs by 14 to 17 year olds?

A Progressive Party response was the Bill that I introduced to Parliament in 2004 which proposed to amend the Sale of Liquor Act (1989) in order to raise the minimum legal age at which you could walk into your local licensed dairy or bottlestore and purchase alcohol - raise it back to 20 years from 18 years.

One of the last acts of the dying National-led government in 1998 had been to radically liberalise the alcohol retailing laws in this country, which included their ill-conceived decision to lower the purchasing age to 18.

All that did was make it 100% easier for 15, 16 and 17 year olds to get hold of alcohol under unsupervised conditions - from their 18 year old mates.

http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=97

The evidence of Rogernomics in alcohol retailing in NZ

In 1998, when National's proposal to lower the alcohol purchasing age was being debated in Parliament, the National Minister of Justice at the time said its purpose was "to establish ...control over the sale and supply of liquor to the public with the aim of contributing to the reduction of liquor abuse...".

Ministry of Justice data since 1999 clearly shows that the negative social trends that existed before the legal age was lowered have continued unabated.

I admit that it still upsets me that my Bill was defeated by 72 to 49 votes.

If some of the members of the parties that shout loudest about how much they "care about families," how much they oppose family violence and unplanned teen pregancies, and how much they want to promote law and order - if these parties had voted for my Bill to be enacted then we would have raised the alcohol purchasing age to twenty years this time last year.

The Progressive Party Bill failed because too many senior National, ACT and UnitedFuture M.P.s voted against it. This is an issue I would like to put back before voters in next year's election in an Auckland seat.

http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2476

ENDS

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