Category Archives: Politics

An open letter to the politically apathetic Facebook generation #votenz

Posted on by Brad Heap

To all who will listen,

Voting: simple and easy, even from overseas.

Next Saturday, each eligible New Zealander will be given the opportunity to vote for who they wish to represent them in government for the next three years.

Unfortunately a large number of young people won’t use this opportunity and as a result their opinion won’t be expressed.

The sad reality is that many people will happily answer online polls, express frustration via status updates and in general complain (often quite rightly) about how crap it is to be young won’t leave the house to pop down to their local school or community hall to vote and make a difference where they actually can.

However, this is the true reality: there is more power in casting a vote than three years of online polls, status updates, and complaining combined.

In New Zealand, under the MMP voting system, every vote is equal, and every vote matters.

But, when you don’t vote you are giving up that equality, you are letting someone else decide, and they will surely decide what is best for themselves, not for you.

For young people this election is particularly relevant for two key reasons: minimum wage/employment and education.

Currently the minimum wage in New Zealand is $12.75/hour and in Australia it is $15.51 AUD/hour which converted to NZ dollars is $20.52/hour – almost double.

If National is re-elected to government their policy is to set a youth minimum wage of 80% of the full minimum wage. That would lower the NZ minimum wage to $10.20/hour – less than half that of Australia’s. In other words young people get screwed.

National have also spent the last three years in government making it harder and more expensive to access education. Entry to university and polytechs are now capped, fees have continued to rise, and it is much harder to get student loans and if National get re-elected expect this to get worse.

Put simply, youth unemployment is over 17%, there are few jobs, people who currently have jobs can expect to be paid less for the same work, and upskilling is a tough gig. Young people are being screwed.

However, most other parties have policy to set the minimum wage to $15/hour and increase access to education.

But while young people continue to moan on Facebook, and fail to vote, they will continue to be screwed by a government that doesn’t care about them.

Next Saturday is an opportunity to change that and elect a government that does represent you.

About a third of people under the age of 25 are not enrolled to vote. If this is you then please enrol you must do so before Friday 25th November. You can enrol here: http://www.elections.org.nz/app/enrol/

Most importantly make sure you go out and vote on Saturday.

Chur,
Passionate young kiwi, living in Australia, wishing to call NZ home again someday.

The consequences of the apathetic generation

Posted on by Brad Heap

Over the last few weeks a revival has happened in New Zealand politics – but not a good revival. On both the left and the right of the political spectrum we have seen a return to the 80s in both politics and politicians.

Let’s start with the Act Party. Strange things happen in politics sometimes. But you can’t get much stranger than Don Brash, former leader of the National Party who is no longer an MP and not a member of the Act Party demanding that Rodney Hide, current Parliamentary leader of the Act Party resign and give the leadership to him or else he will ‘destroy them‘. Out of this coup we have seen the undead zombies of Rogernomics arise with cries of “sell it, sell it, sell it all”.

Meanwhile in the land of the loony left we have the rise of the Mana Party. Rebel former Maori Party MP, Hone Harawira has broken every promise he has made to start this party which features such great minds as Sue Bradford, Matt McCarten and John Minto. The key policy planks of Mana seems to revolve “buy it, buy it, buy it all”. They want to nationalise all monopolies and duopolies and tax and tax and tax everyone into equal poverty.

The co-current leader of the Greens, Russel Norman, sums up the current situation pretty well: “…who wants to relive the battles of the 1980s and 1990s? We’re in 2011 for God’s sake. We need a progressive force that actually deals with where we are now, not tries to refight the 1980s and 1990s.”

That is exactly how I feel. At the moment the NZ National Party wants to step back in time and see MMP removed and replaced with essentially FPP on steroids. Both the extreme left and right parties want to return to the past as well… as for Labour… well where have they been for the last three years? Let alone now… who knows that they stand for or want?

Personally I wonder if the success in the revival of 80s politics is actually a result of the failure of my generation to stand for what they believe in. Political apathy amongst my peers is high. No one cares about politics because ultimately many of them feel that no matter what they do, nothing will change. We see National governments and we see Labour governments and essentially they do the same thing… talk, talk, talk, build a white elephant here and hey presto throw in a big sports tournament and we have another three years gone.

Wasted money on white elephants and sports tournaments are enough to get old people angry enough to go to the extremes to try and make a difference. But for many young people making a difference is a turn off. The world won’t change in the typing of a status message on Facebook so therefore it isn’t worthwhile doing.

As a result, we find ourselves where we are today, a generation of young people who are being neglected because politicians know we don’t care and therefore they don’t need to cater to our needs. They know they can simply hold a sports event every three years which will get us drunk enough to forget about our real needs. And unfortunately by the time we wake up from this hangover we will be bearing the consequences of this neglect for many years to come.

 

UN Joint Statement On Wikileaks

Posted on by Brad Heap

The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression yesterday released a joint statement on Wikileaks.

The full text is at the link above, however, of particular note is points 4 and 5 (emphasis added):

4. Direct or indirect government interference in or pressure exerted upon any expression or information transmitted through any means of oral, written, artistic, visual or electronic communication must be prohibited by law when it is aimed at influencing content. Such illegitimate interference includes politically motivated legal cases brought against journalists and independent media, and blocking of websites and web domains on political grounds. Calls by public officials for illegitimate retributive action are not acceptable.

5. Filtering systems which are not end-user controlled – whether imposed by a government or commercial service provider – are a form of prior censorship and cannot be justified. Corporations that provide Internet services should make an effort to ensure that they respect the rights of their clients to use the Internet without arbitrary interference.

These two statements are important well beyond the realm of Wikileaks. Essentially the New Zealand DIA DNS-based porn filter and the Australian Government’s proposed filter both violate international law. This news is not new, but it is nice to see it reinforced by the UN.

Jon Stewart’s Speech at Rally to Restore Sanity

Posted on by Brad Heap

Overnight Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear at the National Mall in Washington D.C. 150,000 people attended to witness one of the most bizzare protests/rallys you will ever see. But despite this it was also one of the biggest rallys in a generation. The speech made by Jon Stewart at the end of the rally summed up the feelings of the day quite aptly, at the same time in very much Jon Stewart style:

I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but it’s existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold it’s magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinist and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.

And yet with that being said I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin- assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do — but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.

Look on the screen this is where we are this is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car swinging I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA. She loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go, ‘Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car?’ Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land.

Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. You’re presence was what I wanted.

Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.

Len Brown – New Mayor of Auckland

Posted on by Brad Heap

Len Brown has just been elected the first mayor of the Auckland Supercity.

This is a positive result and hopefully one that will see much benefit come to Auckland. Now is the time for long term planning and investment in the city to bring it forward. Three years is both a short and a long time in politics. I don’t know how much Brown will achieve in only three years but lets hope in the long term he will deliver much needed forward thinking for Auckland.

Update 1: A earthquake happened and Bob Parker has been re-elected to the Christchurch Mayoralty. This result shows how quickly the media and natural events can change the fortunes and expected outcomes of people in politics.

Labour self destructs further with involvement in voting scam

Posted on by Brad Heap

Update October 9: Name supression has been revoked, it is safe to post this, I will update with more details later today.

For the last few weeks there has been investigations by Police in New Zealand into voting fraud in South Auckland. In the blogosphere a number of right wing blogs have been point the finger at members of the Labour Party being involved. I refused to believe them as I did not think for one second anyone involved in a political party would be that stupid. I was wrong.

Radio NZ reports:

Two men have been arrested and charged with forgery just days before local body voting closes, accused of creating enrolment irregularities in Auckland.

Labour Party president Andrew Little says at least one of them has links to the party.

At the rate the Labour Party is going they will not be back in power for a long time. This is a real shame, while I may be a Greens supporter it is unlikely they will ever be able to form government without Labour, and with Labour just going from one self-inflected crises to the next National are likely to retain power for the better part of the next decade.

Update: Kiwiblog is reporting the names of the two people arrested, they may or may not have name suppression so I am not going to repost the names here but one of them is a JP. Fraud is one thing, fraud by a JP is another. Since when did NZ become so corrupt?

Blog Post on Electoral Fraud Taken Down and now back up.

Posted on by Brad Heap

Update: Name supression revoked, you should see the post above this one.

I have just taken down my post on the Electoral Fraud in South Auckland. Those involved have managed to get name suppression and news sites and blogs have also removed their political affiliation until the suppression order is lifted. As Kiwiblog points out. This is “Very ironic that this happens on the day the Government announces it will be harder to get name suppression.”

Voluntary Students’ Association Membership Bill Reported Back – The good, the bad and the missing

Posted on by Brad Heap

Yesterday, the Education & Science Select Committee reported back on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill.

The full report from the Select Committee is here.

So firstly the bad: It seems inevitable that students’ associations in New Zealand will become voluntary. Unless a Labour government is elected next year and a repeal is rushed through, in 15 months time compulsory students’ associations will be no more. Once they are voluntary I doubt that any future government will return them to being compulsory.

And the good: The bill is nowhere near as bad or as nasty as Australia, the bill allows for universities to collect fees at enrolment, it sets out clear mechanisms for complaints, and while changing the structure of associations will not kill them (if associations are smart and work with the changes).

And the missing: The bill repeals the current definition of a students’ association and fails to replace it. This is a minor technicality but should be fixed.

The actual details of the bill:

The bill repeals the following sections of the Education Act 1989:

  • Section 171(2)(e) which defines student membership of university councils. However, it is replaced with a requirement that the university council conducts an election for up to three student representatives. This is much better than repealing all student representation on councils. This means that no longer will the students’ association President be guaranteed a seat at the council. Although they are likely to be elected by the students to the council as those who are involved in students’ associations will also be most likely to vote in council elections.
  • Section 229A, 229B, and 229C. These sections currently lay out what constitutes a students’ association (missing from the new bill), how membership fees are collected, how to object, how to vote to change from compulsory to voluntary.

The bill inserts new sections covering:

  • Undue influence, a person cannot pressure a student into becoming a member of the association, not becoming a member, or leaving the association. This clause is good because it sets out clear requirements for both sides. The following section details how a complaint about undue influence is handled by the university council. Furthermore the council has powers to dismiss a complaint if it is not on reasonable grounds. This will stop time wasting and political grandstanding by those who hate students’ associations altogether.
  • Membership fees, students’ associations can continue to collect membership fees. Furthermore universities can collect membership fees on behalf of associations at enrolment. Students’ associations can also charge fees to non-members for services they use. All of this is simple, straightforward and a good working model.
    However, one issue I have with this is the ability in the bill for councils to withhold funds if they believe that a students’ association is not complying with its constitution. This could end up in a massive spat between the university and the association if someone accuses it of not following its constitution on political grounds rather than actual problems. There needs to be some form of dispute resolution if a council withholds fees and the students’ association disagrees with the reasoning of the council in doing so.

I think this version of the bill is workable and while not something that any students’ association wants it is fair to both sides of the political argument. The only major technical flaw in the bill is the missing definition of a students’ association. The current bill has clause 229A(b)

The students association that, at the commencement of this section, is recognised by the council of the institution as being the institution’s students association for the purpose of representation on the council, is the students association at that institution for the purposes of section 171(2)(e), this section, and sections 229B and 229C.

This bill needs a similar clause maybe reading:

The students association that, at the commencement of this section, is recognised by the council of the institution as being the institution’s students association for the purposes of section 171(2)(e), this section, and sections 229B and 229C.

This prevents multiple students’ associations or rouge groups claiming to be an institution’s students’ association and rather has the council spell it out.

—
Footnote: I have used compulsory rather than universal in describing current membership of students’ associations as this is the same word as used in the current Education Act.

People not criminals, freedom not detention

Posted on by Brad Heap

One of the fundamental rights of the west is the idea of freedom. Political freedom, personal freedom, religious freedom, cultural freedom. However, it seems if you come from the east in order to gain your freedom in Australia you must first be treated worse than the prisoners who founded this nation.

Throughout this week there have been a number of protests and problems at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Western Sydney. This week’s problems began with the suicide of a Fijian earlier this week before spreading to protests from Sri Lankans and then Chinese asylum seekers. However, in the past month there have been protests and problems at detention facilities in Darwin and asylum seekers have once again become a political football.

The Australian Government’s response these problems is both predictable and wrong. The SMH earlier this week reported:

Julia Gillard will send the Immigration Minister to East Timor in spite of a warning from the head of a government advisory group that incidents of self-harm at Villawood detention centre are beginning to spiral out of control.

The Prime Minister is forging ahead with the so-called ”East Timor solution” after speaking to her counterpart in that country, Xanana Gusmao, about building a regional processing centre for asylum seekers.

The problem of course with this is it does not solve any problem and only makes conditions for these people worse, by shifting them to a country that is not a signatory to declarations on treatment of refugees and the like and therefore creating more problems and treating these people even more like animals.

A few weeks ago another article in the SMH looked at the treatment of asylum seekers last time they were processed off-shore:

…everyone left on Manus and Nauru was gradually brought here.

Some rotted on the islands for more than five years; some went mad waiting; but in the end, the largest single group of people fed through the Pacific solution ended up where they were always heading: Australia.

It’s a unique ambition: no other country on earth has managed its refugees this way.

This is what happened last time: Australia spent about a billion dollars processing 1637 boat people on Manus and Nauru. (Do the maths: it’s a horrifying $600,000 per head.)

The the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, tight-lipped and diplomatic, is understood to be appalled by the prospect of going through all this again. The closing of the Nauru camp a few years ago was welcomed by a UNHCR spokeswoman as ”the end of a difficult chapter in Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers”.

Now it’s on again, backed by both government and the opposition. For those of a Machiavellian turn of mind, failing to find anywhere to resettle the refugees we process in some offshore dependency is frankly all to the good. The detour to Nauru was never, in itself, much of a deterrent to people smugglers. What helped kill the trade was leaving refugees to rot there for years.

We can stop the boats. That’s the ambition of both sides of politics. And it isn’t hard if we are willing to be cruel. We can order the navy to force them back to Indonesia – operations the navy loathes – or send their human cargoes off to island prisons for indefinite detention.

Those strategies work. But they leave a humane country facing a hard question: how brutal are we willing to be?

Earlier this week The Gruen Transfer had the subject of their “The Pitch” segment to be on so called “Boat People”, it is a good watch and really hammers home just how bad Australia treats people who are not from the west.