Just Left

Two negotiations, one target: the Internet & our brighter future

This month two important negotiations happen that could affect anyone who uses the Internet.

In Auckland, there is a negotiating round for the Trans Pacific Partnership, a managed economic and trade pact that includes an intellectual property chapter that has to be seen to be believed: that branch of Hollywood known as the US Trade Rep has pushed for things like outlawing parallel importing, and even trying to create property rights in data on the Internet while it is in transit. (Barking crazy stuff, really.)

Half a world away in Dubai, a centuries-old UN organ called the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is looking at a 1988 treaty for review, with some member states seeking to impose old phone network charging models on the Internet, or legitimacy for snooping on their citizens, or (if you believe the most critical accounts) trying to take coordination of Internet numbering and naming off the private sector and into the hands of governments.

Yawn, so what, you're possibly thinking.

Think again.

The old industries that have been damaged by the rise of the Internet use every means at their disposal to fight back.

Big movies, big music, big telcos, Big Brother: they all hate the changes that the Internet has brought about. They don't like their revenue disappearing. They don't like the fact anyone can publish and distribute their views online to a global audience. They raise fierce claims of piracy and damage.

It's all nonsense, of course. There are more movies, more music, more news sites, more opinion and commentary, more shared expression than has ever happened before. The conditions the old Bigs claim will destroy their industries have done the opposite - even for the Bigs that complain about them.

So why do some governments react in favour of the bigs and the olds, ignoring their citizens interests? Set aside the wishes of repressive regimes to get their sticky fingers on the 'net...

It's a problem as old as economics. When someone has a pile of money they will fight hard to protect it, and by definition they usually have the ability to fight that fight. The NZ experience of this is farmers demanding huge subsidies in the 70s, or the cheap power demands of the aluminium smelter, or rental home owners' aversion to capital taxes.

What would happen if these twin attacks succeed? Easy: more costs for Internet users. Less available content. Less privacy. Less innovation.

It's the open nature of the Internet that people in my line of work have been fighting for. The Internet as it is and should be is a platform founded on ideals of freedom. People follow the protocols and can develop any services they want. Email. World Wide Web. Torrents. Voice. These allow low cost high speed sharing and service all over the globe. Online travel; maps; social media; on and on it goes.

An Internet built on the values of some of the negotiators in the TPP and the ITU would never have taken off. It would not work. The free and open exchange many of us take for granted would not be here today.

New Zealand is on the side of the angels in this so far, in the ITU reliably. The TPP is harder: what if the choice is to trade off the Internet (say through crazy copyright and patent reforms) to get more beef and dairy access?

For me that's obvious: we wouldn't sign, simple as that. Others think we would have to. The cabinet is full of farmers. The temptation to back the old economy, which for all its faults does provide us with an income today, is obvious. Strangling the new economy would be easy in the short term, for there isn't much of it to fight back.

I'd be horrified if that happened, because we are hitting the physical limits of our old economy. There is only so much grass we can grow, coal we can mine, milk we can churn, trees we can chop. There aren't any comparable limits to our imaginations or creativity.

If we want a high wage, clean economy, it won't come from the old. It will come from the new.

That's why these two negotiations matter, so keep your eyes and ears open.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Housing for all

100,000 new affordable houses. Backed up by a clear workable plan for achieving it, and an ideological shift to embrace the possibility of the government as a practical force for change. All eloquently set out in David Shearer's excellent speech to Party conference (which you can find here, including fact sheets!).

This is a seismic change in New Zealand politics. It is part of Labour's evolution into an organisational and political force for change based on — and proud of — social democratic values: fairness, freedom and solidarity.

The whole direction of change is as I described in my previous post. Labour is becoming more open, more democratic, more relevant to the day to day challenges New Zealnders face — and the hopes we all share for the country's future.

So having a large number of new houses built at an affordable price point is a real prize for people. It will change the chances people have to get into home ownership.

It isn't a panacea. It isn't Labour's complete housing policy and wasn't intended to be. But it offers a whole stack of positives:

• More houses at a more affordable price, esp. in Auckland
• A more sustainable building industry with more jobs
• Higher skills and productivity in that industry due to higher, more stable demand
• A higher level of building --> economies of scale --> lower per unit costs for everyone including private construction
• Hopefully lower costs for existing property, having a wider effect across the whole housing market

It's hard to see downsides, and the best thing about such a practical, workable policy is that there is no way National can copy it. Their ideology forbids it, their supporters hate it, their principles oppose it and they and their proxies will lie and spin any way they can to try and oppose it.

Posted with Blogsy

#NetHui South

So I am in Dunedin at the university for NetHuiSouth — a conference that is part of InternetNZ's effort to bring multi-stakeholder Internet governance out to the provinces.

There's a strong focus on rural and provincial issues, as well as the traditional issues concerning the global governance of the Internet. The looming WCIT summit, where the International Telecommunications Union (set up two centuries ago) will try and get its grubby little hands on the Internet, will be a key issue of concern. I am also expecting reports back from the global Internet Governance Forum, held in Baku last month.

It's so everyday that for most of us it is easy to forget just how revolutionary the Internet is. A private sector, collaborative, open infrastructure lets people innovate without permission. It lets anyone publish their views, discover any fact, share their joys or sorrow, make money or spend it, and connect with whoever they want.

Keeping it that way is important. Some states want to shut down this field of freedom. They are wrong, but they will make the attempt now and again in future. Keeping the 'net open is the vital response all of us can take - and we can help do it at events like NetHui.

If you can't get to Dunedin, you can find live streams on the website at Nethui.org.nz. This is NOT a conference — the participants do more talking than the keynotes or the organisers. It's a good way to do things. Poke your nose in, and check it out.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Government Administration Ctte and #MarriageEquality

I said my piece this morning before the Select Committee hearing submissions on Louisa Wall's Marriage Equality legislation.

I started with a story about my brother's wedding and reception, a hot balmy beautiful day in November 2005. The feedback from relatives there about how sad it was that I wouldn't be getting married - and from other relatives that 'oh well, there is always a civil union right?'

(Separate but equal has a long lineage but not in New Zealand. It belongs in the past.)

Moved on then to do a thought experiment - I asked MPs against to consider two possible scenarios.

What if they lived in a world where most people were in same-sex relationships and the law supported those, but not different-sex relationships? How would they feel?

Alternatively, what if they themselves fell in love with someone of the same gender, but found that the State denied them access to a critical social, family and community institution like marriage?

After that I just reiterated the points in my written submission and awaited questions.

The only one came from Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who asked me (I think) what would happen to future growth of the population if everyone was in same-sex relationships. I explained to him that this was not ever likely to happen. He got confused. So did I.

I love that in our democracy, you can face up to Parliament, have a say, be treated with respect (or at least, in this case, bemusement) and do your part to make the world a better place.

#MarriageEquality is going to happen next year. Can't wait.

Conference 2012

In many ways, the Labour Party conference last weekend was a triumph. A set of issues mean it doesn't feel like that right now, but in the longer term it will be seen that way.

Why?

I work in the Internet arena. It's decentralised. Hierarchy doesn't matter much. Ideas rise or fall on their merits. People's views are treated with respect, and everyone can have a say.

It is those aspects of the Internet revolution - how it works and how it changes us - that keep me interested in it - and in politics.

The 'net is changing society. Along with the '68 revolution and the era of the babyboomers, and the massive liberalisation they brought about, New Zealand has much less time for authoritarian leaders than it used to. Collaboration, working together, the demise of hierarchy and bossy management, all these changes are real. Wider choice and respect for our voice - as consumers and as citizens - is part of New Zealand's reality today.

Yet the two main political parties have remained stuck in the past. Labour and National are caught in the old ways of doing things. A small elite at the top in charge; the rest of us there as servants to carry out the wishes of the elite - pawns, all too often, in a game of thrones.

This weekend just gone, Labour started to catch up with New Zealand.

Important reforms gave party members a say on leadership choice and on policy direction. The ability to campaign properly in an MMP environment was enhanced.

Most important was the attitude in the conference. I don't mean the hysterical fringes, or the debate that turned into a proxy for other issues. I mean the broad consensus of what the tone was and what people thought they were doing.

Delegates, by and large, carried through fundamental reforms mostly unanimously. From David Shearer and Grant Robertson, Moira Coatsworth and Tim Barnett, through regions and sectors to electorates and branches and members individually, the door that was opened by last December's leadership hustings and — more emphatically — by changes in New Zealand society, wrought a new settlement in the NZLP.

I know that because of the overlay of leadership debate, the changes we made don't grab attention. But I also know those changes were overdue, are irreversible, and that most of the debate had *nothing to do* with the 'contemporary anxieties' Andrew Little referred to. Anxieties, I might add, that were substantially lessened by the content and delivery of David's leaders speech on Sunday.

The changes we made this weekend are big, and they clash head on with the culture of the Parliamentary Labour Party. That part of Labour is very accustomed to being in charge, on its own terms. The shock to the system this weekend will have been severe for some MPs and for some party grandees.

My advice to people feeling like that is simple: calm down.

Like anyone else, I know Labour needs strong leadership, and that divisions and splits help the Nats and hurt us. That should go without saying. That won't change with a more Democratic party, unless the party decides it does not want to win elections.

What is going to change is the 'on their own terms' part of the leadership equation. Members - including the whole leadership - have decided that power is to be shared. Caucus dominance will always be real, but the previous absolute right of the Parliamentary wing to make all the key decisions for all of us is now a part of the past.

It's a positive thing. The chatter on the conference floor wasn't *against* anyone: it was *for* the ideal of a more open, more pluralist, more vigorous Labour Party. Anyone who feels attacked by what happened, in that sense, needs to reflect and to deal with the change.

That's the sharp end of democratisation. That is what happened on the weekend. That is what Labour people should celebrate. That is what we are all going to need to come to terms with.

If we fail to, then we are in for a rocky road. The wide support for reform should — must — translate into wide support for its implementation, to unify the party and the movement around the new politics that found its voice this weekend.

The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

I don't want to say a lot about what has happened since. My focus is on making those policy reforms work, and contributing to the management job we now have in pulling Labour together again.

One thing is for sure: we changed the game last weekend. In the long run, Labour will be the stronger for it.

My marriage equality submission

If you're interested...

Submission

to the Government Administration Committee

on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill 2012


Dear Committee members,

Introduction

1. This personal submission is from Jordan Carter, 34 year old Canadian-born New Zealander living in Wellington.

2. I wish to appear before the Committee in support of this submission, if time can be found for this to be done. My contact details are provided separately.

General position

3. I support the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, and I recommend the Bill be referred back to the House with the Committee’s support for its speedy passage.

4. In the law, marriage is a component of the civil rights of New Zealanders. It, along with some issues related to the care of children, represents the only clear discrimination remaining in New Zealand law against people who are not heterosexual.

5. Civil marriage is an issue of rights, and of the law. While a wide range of religious traditions have an interest in various forms of marriage, their responsibilities are to their faith. Parliament’s responsibility is to uphold the rights of New Zealanders. Accordingly, religious arguments should not sway this Committee on this matter.

6. There is no legitimate argument to deny equal access to civil marriage to same-sex couples, just as there would be no legitimate argument to prohibit marriages between people of different ethnic groups, or between different-sex couples who are infertile.

7. All such arguments belong to past eras. None should guide New Zealand’s policy in 2012 and beyond.

8. The fight against homophobia, of which this legislation forms part, is the same as the fight against racism and sexism. In our country in this decade, all forms of bigotry should be met with the same response: a celebration of diversity, and a principled commitment to equality for all.

9. Civil unions are separate but not-quite-equal. They are an honourable institution but they are not the same as marriage equality. Only access to the same institution accords the same recognition, the same honour and the same respect to all.

10. By endorsing this legislation, Parliament will send a signal to everyone, but particularly to (and about) all of us who are not heterosexual: that our lives, our loves, our hopes and dreams are of the same character and legitimacy as those of all other New Zealanders.

11. That is a message worth sending. Please support this Bill, and send it.

12. I broadly support the submissions by New Zealand Rainbow Labour and by the Campaign for Marriage Equality.

Specific comments

13. The Bill achieves its objective by ensuring that marriage is made equal. I do not have any amendments to suggest.

14. I note comments by some members of the public that there is uncertainty as to whether this amendment would oblige members of some religious organisations to perform marriages to which they may be opposed.

15. It seems unlikely to me that this is the case, as outlined in great depth in other more lawyerly submissions.

16. I would not strongly object if the Committee chose to recommend inclusion of language that clarified this matter beyond doubt, but think that the matter is clear without such clarification.

Conclusion

17. Parliament should take this opportunity to send a message that all New Zealanders are equal. It should support this Bill.

18. I recommend the Committee commend this Bill to the House.

Yours sincerely

Jordan Carter

Changing Labour this weekend

Labour's annual conference meets in Auckland this weekend. It's the most important conference in a generation. Changes are on the table that will fundamentally change Labour, bringing it closer to the public and making it fit to lead New Zealand again.

Stepping back from the day to day rush (and the chitter chatter about leadership issues, which is wildly overblown), Labour has taken the past few months to consider its structure and the way it organises. It hasn't been an internally focused review, though the outcomes being debated this weekend are focused on what Labour does.

The focus has been: how do we build a party that is better connected with the community? How do we organise and campaign better with MMP? How do we change from an industrial age hierarchy into a less centralised, more democratic structure?

These are the right questions for Labour to ask, and the answers the review has come up with are broadly right too.

New Zealanders have no patience these days for political parties or governments that claim to know it all. People no longer accept that Wellington Knows Best (if ever they did). Pushing decisions downwards and outwards to communities and to local democracy has been an important part of politics now for years.

That's why we brought in elected DHBs. That's why we extended the remit of local government. That's why an earlier Labour government brought in Tomorrow's Schools. People know what they need and what they want, and the central State doesn't always have to make those calls for them.

Labour's internal structures have not kept up, and nor has its culture. We can all cite examples in the 2000s and before when Labour left an impression of knowing best. The whole "Nanny State" thing could never have emerged without some substance behind it, after all.

Why does this matter?

There are two fundamentals in a political party. One is leadership selection and the other is decisions around policy. Together, those affect strategy, electoral appeal and relevance, political success and eventually, access to power.

This weekend's debate will include the chance for Conference to massively widen the constituency that selects Labour's leader: from 30-50 MPs to tens of thousands of members of the Party and affiliated trade unions.

That is as it should be. People who want to lead should have to demonstrate that they can win support from a cross-section of the public. I am damn sure that the Labour Party membership and members of our affiliated unions are a more diverse and representative cross-section of New Zealand than the Labour caucus is. The new process will require people to show they can win support from that broader constituency before they become leader.

It's a much needed reform, and will bring Labour in NZ into line with almost all other social democratic parties around the world. The ALP will remain the only organisation with backroom boys making these sorts of calls. They are welcome to that splendid isolation.

I am confident Conference will adopt this change. It is brave but necessary change.

There's a similar reform proposed on policymaking. There will be a wider mandate for policy: a Platform (the first ever draft of which is online here) would structure the party's manifesto and election policies. All policy would have to be consistent with the Platform and could only depart from it for a reason (e.g. a coalition negotiation) and with a supermajority of the party's Policy Council (a mix of MPs and activists) in agreement.

To draft, debate and adopt the Platform will involve hundreds of people across the party's branches and regions and sectors. It will involve reaching out to industry, to community groups, to advocacy organisations in every sphere of public life.

Once it is adopted by the Conference, it will be a standing framework that gives people a clear sense of what Labour stands for, and how it will govern. It will shift the right to make fundamental decisions about the party's direction and approach from the Parliamentary wing alone, into the whole organisation.

Both these reforms cut to the heart of what it means to be a modern political party. They acknowledge that not all wisdom resides at the centre. They celebrate the diverse perspectives and ideas that come from really listening to the community, and debating (sometimes with great passion!) the big picture of what Labour stands for and what Labour will deliver.

They are about making Labour the party that is most relevant to the country's future.

Look at our opponents and see the difference. National party members have no real say in policy. It's left to the Board (of seven) and the Cabinet. National tramples on local democracy whenever it can - look at the tragedy of Christchurch and the theft of water resources being given a stamp of legitimacy in Canterbury. Look at the efforts to take community representation away from Polytechs and Universities. Look at the efforts to wind back the powers and responsibilities of local government.

At precisely the moment that New Zealand's government and politics needs to be humble about its own abilities, and respectful of the ideas that the public can bring to the table, the National Party is going the wrong way.

There are other important changes on the table, and you can read the full list here. The overall package is a far-reaching set of reforms. Once we deal with candidate selection next year, a full overhaul will have been done, based on grassroots debate, international comparison and hard-headed analysis of what we need to change.

Labour's got it right. That is why this conference is important. We need to change our party if we are to win a mandate to change the country.

I've been writing about this for a while. It's part of the necessary process I identified in 2010 on this blog - of "turning ourselves inside out":

As we say "this is what we are hearing, what do you think?", we also have to invite people in to join with us and help shape what we are doing next. We have to use the best technology there is to do it, as well as the traditional means of face to face and direct mail politics. We need to be the party that people see as grassroots based, and where they know that if they want to raise an issue or a concern, it will filter through to what our policy is and what our politicians are saying and thinking.

Changing a political party is slow work, but we are heading in the right direction. The historic decisions we make this weekend - the most important changes to our party for a generation - will show just how serious we are. By themselves these changes won't achieve nirvana, but what they do do is this: they give Labour the foundation on which to build a winning campaign in 2014.

Changing Labour so we can change New Zealand, and see this country live up to its promise. That's what Labour is for.

Taming globalisation

2008 changed everything.

The intellectual foundation of the policy framework we have used for thirty years was cut to pieces. The excuses and evasions of those in power across the West delivering stagnant wages, limiting opportunities, allowing asset price bubbles to explode and fertilising the soil that grew the Global Financial Crisis were at an end.

The lesson since is about how hard it is to change to a new approach even when you know the old one is a zombie, a dead thing pretending to live but unmistakeably past it.

If neo-liberal economy is bankrupt and a new thing needs to replace it, where are the points of attack?

One is global trade. What passes for a 'trade' framework has been frozen for over a decade in the 'Doha round' of WTO talks. It isn't a bad framework, and it has a functional institutional structure to drive it -- but it is too liberal to survive unchanged post 2008 and with the rise of developing country power in the international community.

In this case by liberal, I mean stacked in favour of the rich white core economies, and against poor developing ones. The rich export tariff free. The poor face steep market access barriers. This dynamic is what has jammed the WTO: the poor have said "enough is enough" — and for the first time, we have to listen. The same dynamic breaks climate change talks.

New Zealand is on both sides. Quite rich and quite white, we suffer from agricultural trade rules stacked against us. The rich erect barriers and soak farmers with subsidies. The poor suffer the consequences.

So in the face of this freeze at the WTO, the wealthy and powerful are trying to side step it, in part with agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, a cross-Pacific agreement being negotiated as I write. The next round is in Auckland in December.

This deal goes beyond trade. It seeks to limit policy choices in a wide range of areas, to rules that lock the zombie ideas of the 80s into the driving seat for all time (or until unravelled). SoE rules? Investor state disputes? Challenges to public services rights? Threats to environmental control? Copyright term extensions? A licence for Hollywood to tax Google?

It's all in there with more, aside from what you and I would recognise as more normal trade policy.

Countries like NZ face a choice.

Resuscitate the zombie?

Or let it die?

My preference is that we work in the WTO framework to serve our interests and fairness all at once: undoing the bias against primary production, and in favour of rich subsidisers.

Agreements like the TPPA might offer short term gains. But the costs are already apparent. As a small example, look how Australia got gypped in its 2004 deal with the USA. The gains are hard to see, especially with some parts of the US establishment now starting to position TPPA as a China containment strategy.

We don't know how things will change in future. Open trade is almost always for the better, where there is a true level playing field.

NZ ought to focus on that aim through the WTO framework. Not be helping dead ideas march on into a future that leaves Labour ideals - decent jobs, strong public services, democratic government, good environmental stewardship - harder to achieve.

I will be watching the NZ debate with interest...

Inflation is not the problem

This morning, we learned that consumer price inflation in the year to 30 September was 0.8%, the lowest in thirteen years.

Inflation is not the problem. Growth and exports are.

David Parker is right: the country's monetary policy is busy fighting the last war. It's a classic example of limited thinking, focusing on the past. We do it all the time, but sometimes we also have the imagination and wit to start working on the problems the future poses.

Hundreds of thousands of us are without enough work. Our incomes are too low. Our export economy is stuttering. Our economy wastes resources and abuses our environment.

Those are the challenges we need to be solving. Consumer price inflation isn't. We've beaten it. We need to keep an eye on it, but it isn't the central problem we face.

Our institutions and our policies should focus on the things that matter most. Jobs, development, progress.

Looks like a change of government will be required to bring that about.

Should your ISP have to hold your hand?

In the security session at the Australian Internet Governance Forum this morning (see www.igf.org.au for info), an interesting dilemma about security responses by ISPs came up.

There is the prospect that ISPs could use a range of more or less reliable technologies (from deep packet inspection to usage metering) to identify users whose accounts are creating a threat -- for instance, compromised computers being part of a botnet attack.

The dilemma is, should they?

It's easy to see an upside from such a step. If you were compromised, or thought to be, your computer could be put inside a walled garden (off the open Internet) so you see a website identifying the problem and suggesting remedial responses. Since most people have no idea about computers this would respond to a key problem -- user ignorance.

What about downsides?

Do we want ISPs monitoring all use of their networks and obliged to act based on what they find?

What about privacy?

Would ISPs be found liable if they failed?

Would security by hackers just leap ahead?

Good arguments were put either way.

I have long had the view that ISPs are, and should remain, simple conduits to the Internet. They should have no content role. They are not copyright police, security police, good taste police, gambling tsars or any of that. They just provide the connection, and are only responsible for doing that. (Unless you buy more services of course.)

Doesn't solve the security problem -- but keeps ISP sticky beaks at bay, and minimises the cost of ISP operations, to the benefit of us all.

What is your view?

On dealing with child poverty

In a rather interesting post this morning, David Farrar over at Kiwiblog argued that National needs to do several things to regain momentum. Responding to rising concern about child poverty was one of them. One comment was particularly revealing:

 

National’s policies around welfare reform, national standards, reducing child abuse, better domestic violence laws are in fact all about reducing real child poverty, and giving more kids a better start in life. The left’s only answer to these issues is tax and spend. They won’t confront the much tougher issues of welfare dependency, the bottom 20% of students etc. National will.

It is not often that someone like David shows a total blind spot about his opponents, but perhaps it's just the context of a post advising National how to proceed.

Redistribution is indeed a core strategy for us on the left, but it is hardly the only one.

It is useful both in terms of taxing and in terms of spending. Markets distribute income in a way few regard as fair. A progressive income tax system is a policy all significant political parties support, with debate being about the steepness of the progressivity involved — not whether there is some. Same with spending. Labour's Working for Families tax credits redistributed money from households without kids to those with kids.

(As an aside, National defined this as communism by stealth, but has kept it anyway. Same with interest free student loans. Talk about a party that falls over whenever its principles are even mildly unpopular. Watch them give up on asset sales next...)

Never ever has tax and spend been our only response to poverty. Child poverty comes about because children live in poor families. So the left's historic and modern mission to tackle inequality is at the centre of the fight to change the depraved insanity that keeps too many of our children in poor households.

Besides redistribution through tax and spend, what other tools are in our toolbox? Here are a few of them:

• Promotion of collective bargaining and workplace rights: these leave incomes higher for those at the bottom & in the middle of the income distribution. More equality, less poverty.
• Support for civil society campaigns like the Living Wage: to improve further the share of the economic pie that goes to working people. More equality, less poverty.
• A welfare state structure that supports children. This might be a part of 'tax and spend' but one could also simply target existing welfare spending differently to help kids more. More equality, less poverty.
• Strong minimum code rights on issues like minimum wages, paid parental leave, annual leave and so on. For the most vulnerable workers, this can make a major difference. (Look at what current silly plans to cut youth minimum wages will do to young peoples' incomes.) More equality, less poverty.
• Full employment as a focus of economic policy: jobs are the best route out of poverty. Economic policy needs to focus on high and stable levels of employment, so fewer people are on benefits. We got numbers on benefits down from 400,000 to 280,000 before the change of government and the GFC. Jobs with good incomes are the best assurance against poverty. More equality, less poverty.

These strategies go far beyond 'tax and spend'. Nobody should be surprised by this. Labour exists as a movement to make life better for people — for pretty much everyone.

That requires fairer sharing of the huge wealth of our economy among all our people. Fiscal policy, market structures, monetary policy, development strategies all have a role to play. Whatever you call it (the term 'per-distribution' is a bit in vogue in some parts of the left), the agenda is right at the heart of our politics and we use many tools to bring it about.

 

National doesn't believe in that agenda, and that's why National cannot sort out the child poverty crisis. David's suggestions might help a bit at the margin, but they won't turn this disaster around.

 

Just another reason why New Zealand needs a Labour/Greens government: to really, profoundly change things.

Posted with Blogsy

Responding to the New Zealand doldrums

It just keeps on getting worse.

Today's reactionary announcement by the Government that it wants to cut the incomes of vulnerable young people comes at the same time as NZIER reports lowering business confidence and expectations about next year. Unemployment remains too high, manufacturing jobs are flooding out of the economy, and citizens are flooding across the Tasman to the land of milk and honey - or jobs and higher wages, at any rate.

How the hell did it all go so wrong for National? Why are ordinary New Zealanders getting quickly grumpier with the gang in charge, sensing (not before time) that the Nats are not on the side of most of us?

Values. Values and purpose.

The National Party was set up in the 30s with no better reason than to oppose Labour's social democratic ambitions. Explicitly founded to oppose a fair distribution of incomes. To oppose policies for full employment. To oppose policies that built a New Zealand economy that would deliver for New Zealanders. A dog eat dog value set guides everything they do. For them, cooperation is and always has been a joke. Savagery and competition are the only things that matter, and climbing over the top of everyone else to grab your winnings is the only path to the light.

Nothing's really changed. The plutocrats remain in charge of National. The smokescreens of distraction are still artfully deployed. Beneficiaries get bashed whenever things are looking rough. Vast seas of public debt are run up to shelter the slow erosion of the tax base and of the public services we all need. Job losses are simply lied about, with 170,0o0 new ones promised each budget but never actually coming into being.

People are losing out. Tempers are fraying. People don't like the idea that the only hope they can have is by leaving Aotearoa.

Labour is stepping up its criticism. That's good. The mood has well and truly started to shift. But with the criticism has to come more detail about the plan. Jobs, growth, sustainability, transformation, hope.

We have been through a weird experiment the past thirty years. 2008 was its intellectual death-knell. In 2012 we are watching the zombie start to stumble. New ideas are needed. Not just ideas but concrete proposals as to what difference they'll make on the ground.

The job of thinking through the policies that deliver a better kind of country is well underway in the Labour Party and the Green Party has its own perspective on what to do differently. The biggest risk that Labour faces is being too nervous to really drive change - fearful of orthodoxy, not certain that the public will back the depth of change needed to turn the country around.

Tweaks won't do it. It is not a time for the odd policy nip-n-tuck. Triangulating towards National or trying to fly into their slipstream could only guarantee failure. A big bold case for change is what we owe the country now.

David Shearer's education speech last month got a few solid ideas out. The work two more Labour Davids are doing on the economy is starting to show through. Our Conference, coming up in a few weeks, is another chance to showcase an agenda for change.

As long as we acknowledge these three things, we'll be fine:

• The experiment of the last thirty years has not delivered the kind of country, the sort of society, or the type of economy that New Zealanders want.
• Only Labour's values about equality, guardianship and opportunity can drive a really different programme that can turn things around.
• We have to set out our ideas and argue for them in order to get the public on side - voters aren't going to arrive at support for a new approach without us having, and winning, the debate about what to do differently.

I have some confidence that that is where we're headed.

Planet Key/National ""Facts"" #1

This is one for the books. Media, some fact checking? ANY fact checking? Please?

From the Dominion Post on Friday 14 September, page 2:

PM: economy on track - just ask the Aussies

Prime Minister John Key said his Government was doing enough for the economy despite a recent spate of job losses. "The overall outlook is slightly improving ... My view is we've got absolutely the right plan to lift economic growth."

Mr Key said many Australians were jealous of New Zealand's direction. "I guess that's the fact that they wanted me to go over and be their prime minister. That would be some indication."

Hmm.

Australia --- New Zealand

Unemployment
5.1% --- 6.8%

GDP growth
3.7% --- 1.7%

Net Govt Debt
9.2% --- 25%


I don't think we will be needing to ask for our Prime Minister back any time soon.

The $78 billion

A new study out today (Stuff, Herald), which cost you and I $1,000,000 or so, shows what we already knew: that if everyone on a benefit stayed on it forever, it would cost us all a pile of cash.

The pile would be of a size neither you nor I can understand: $78,000,000,000 or so. It shows those on the DPB or sickness or invalids benefits cost more than those on the dole.

Wow. What a novelty.

Except it isn't a novelty. You can work that out by simply applying a bit of logic. The longer you are on a benefit, and the higher the rate of that benefit, the higher the cost.

Let me put aside for a moment my cynical conviction that the only reason National released this number today was to further try and pick political fights with weak victims. That the reason they would want to do this now is the growing evidence of economic and social failure their policies are generating in this post-GFC world. That Labour's initiative on education has given them unwelcome pause for thought. That picking on the weak is John Key's favourite sport in shoring up a sagging majority.

So put that aside and wonder what such a study could be useful for.

Does Key, does National have an agenda to force the social security system into an insurance model?

We all know how well that's worked with ACC: insane levy hikes, rampant additions to budget surpluses or deficits depending on global stockmarket results, a constant vicious pressure on claimants to get off the scheme, administrative ineptitude as costs are pruned at every turn beyond what competence permits.

Full funding of ACC has been a disaster and it needs to go. It sees every single one of us paying too much for too little.

What on earth would you want to extend the model to social security for?

To give you arguments to pick on the most vulnerable even further?

(After all, the highest cost ones could be victimised/pushed off, in order to ""Save Billions!"".)

To make the system able to be privatised?

(Nobody would buy pay-go social welfare just as they wouldn't buy pay-go ACC, but they would LOVE to get their hands on the billions sitting around in a ""fully funded"" model.)

Given that neither of these arguments will ever fly in New Zealand, it must be something else.

There may be incremental improvements to the system that can learn from this knowledge. If there are, that's to the good. But such incremental improvements would never get the political attention through leaks and trailing that the $78bn number has been connected with.

I'm left with my cynical explanation. It's just another distraction, just another form of abuse of the most vulnerable people in the country.

Just business as usual for the government we suffer under.

Education matters

Pleased with David Shearer's speech on education yesterday, two aspects in particular:

1. Making the link, explicitly, between poverty/inequality/social inclusion and educational success. We have a long tail at heart because the poorest and most vulnerable in NZ are left out.

2. Practical changes that will tackle that problem in the short and long term, and at the same time having a plan to improve school quality that will actually make things better instead of just trying to scare parents.

It's good.

Education is at the heart of a free and equal society. It's an issue the public knows we get. It sums up much of what Labour stands for in an entirely practical way: the chance for everyone to learn and grow.

The depoliticisation of economics

I was having a discussion on Facebook last night, sparked by my previous post, about why it is that there is so much more passion among parts of the left for marriage equality than more bread-and-butter issues such as, say, a living wage (as evidenced by the gallery people-flows last week).

Allow me to suggest a reason why.

Think about civil rights.

For the past thirty years, decisions by our Parliament have been central to expanding the realm of human rights and freedoms. Homosexual law reform, the Human Rights Act, prostitution law reform, Civil Unions and now marriage equality (as a non-exhaustive list) drew direct connections between the political process and real changes in people's lives.

The public discourse on these issues was about the centrality of Parliament and the decisions that politicians would make on these issues. Politics was central. Debates were substantive. Change could result.

So now, think about economic issues.

For the past thirty years, decisions by our Parliament have been marginal to the economic progress of the nation - and deliberately so. Government has withdrawn itself in so many ways from economic life. In pursuit of an ideology now proved false in the only testing ground that counts (the real world), the state got out of the way.

The public ideology of and debates around economic policy have been about the primacy of the market, and subordination of politics. The market, a cold abstraction nobody could see or argue with, would make the calls. It was our job as people to do what its highly paid messengers and managers would say.

Think about that.

Is it any wonder that most people don't think political action can make a difference on so-called "bread and butter" issues - when for so many years they've been told just that?

Is it any wonder that most people think political action can make a difference in civil rights, when they evidence that it can is before their eyes every time such an issue comes up?

This isn't to discount different explanations such as the changing class composition of Labour and left activists more broadly. Just to suggest a different way to think about the problem.

The implications of this are, I think, quite wide-ranging. I personally have never made this connection before. If most people don't think politicians can help when it comes to economic concerns, the political left is in a tricky spot given its entire programme of reform is based on changing the economy.

Perhaps our campaigns need to focus on repoliticising economic questions. Perhaps they already do and I'm just not conscious of it. Perhaps we need more even-handed media institutions that don't privilege the depoliticising agenda of the right when it comes to economic issues.

Food for thought!

Equality matters to us all

Equality is one of the most interesting values and principles of the labour movement, at least in part because we live in the Era of Freedom in so many ways. Individual choices and the right to be left alone are dominant in policy, politics and the media -- though of course not among citizens or in the way people actually live their lives.

I was reminded of the importance of the principle in the somewhat strange debate that sees the occasional Labour person saying that marriage equality isn't an important issue.

Of course it is.

If your social or family circle includes no people from LGBT people (which is unlikely), you are less directly affected. Sure. I get that. But even so, you benefit from a society characterised by a high degree of fairness for everyone. Direct or not, equality in the realm of marraige matters just as it does in the workplace, or anywhere else.

Grant Robertson's weekend post on Red Alert summed up nicely why:

As the excited crowd left the public gallery of Parliament on Wednesday evening, the Speaker had to pause the business of the House. There was a buzz in the air following the vote on Louisa Wall’s marriage equality bill. It was a great night for fairness, equality and courage. The journey New Zealand has been on since the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in the 80s, through Civil Unions in 00s took another important step in giving all New Zealanders a fair go. We saw some courageous testimonies in the days leading up to the vote and some courageous speeches and voting on the night.

When the crowd had dispersed, and the gallery was deserted, my friend and colleague David Clark got up to introduce his private members bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in line with Labour’s 2011 manifesto commitment. The crowd should have stayed. He gave a great speech. So did Darien Fenton who followed on from him focusing on the plight of the cleaners in Parliament. Have a look at the speeches, they are thoughtful and heartfelt pleas for a fair wage for all workers. The response from the government speakers was as predictable as it was out of touch.

...

I would have loved the crowd who so enthusiastically supported marriage equality to have stayed and cheered on a fair go for our lowest paid workers. The issues come from the same well-spring. Its all part of the agenda of a fair go for all New Zealanders and a society where we reject exclusion and unfairness and embrace and value the contribution that all Kiwis can make to our society.

Fairness, equality, is deep in the DNA of New Zealanders. We instinctively knowthat a system stacked against the weak and powerless is wrong. That is why our history is littered with progressive reforms based on the principle of equality: votes for women, votes for Maori, human rights law affecting all, anti-racism campaigns, the Halt All Racist Tours movement, striving for ecological justice, the human rights improvements for LGBT New Zealanders, fair workplace laws, egalitarian social security arrangements, a non-discriminatory state pension.... on and on it goes.

The phrase "equality" summons up some of the worst. That's why most of us, most of the time, talk about fairness. Equality isn't about forcing conformity, or lowest common denominatorism, or turning people into stalinist clones.

It's precisely the opposite.

You cannot have a free society which is disfigured by divides between the insiders and the outsiders.

You cannot have democracy when the voices of a few with power drown out those of the many who don't.

You cannot have economic success for all when working men and women are treated as a cost to be minimised.

You cannot honour the Treaty when the trappings of colonialism still lie all around, powerful and alive and well despite the progress of the past forty years.

You cannot have social justice when you treat those on benefits as second class citizens, somehow less than the rest of us.

You cannot have dignity when some are treated as a little less equal than others when it comes to social rights and customs that are at the heart of our society.

Honouring the diverse circumstances we all have is why the Labour movement believes in equality. Fairness is justice and justice & fairness are all about equality: that is the core of social democratic politics and ideology today. Not just to those living but to those who are yet to come (which is why environmental stewardship is becoming more pronounced in social democratic and Labour politics).

So I have a piece of advice to my friends in the Labour movement who try to charactise the Living Wage campaign, or Marriage Equality, as sideshows. (I've heard both, to my surprise.)

They aren't. Relate them back to our core beliefs. If you are in an audience skeptical about one aspect of this journey we are all on, towards fairness & equality, then tell another part of the story.

For those who aren't interested in marriage equality, relate the issue back to core issues of fairness at work.

For those who can't get their heads around why a strong trade union movement and fair industrial laws are good for us all, relate it back to suffrage or marriage equality, or the universal pension.

These things are all related. The more clearly we link them together the more likely it is our message can cut through, and the stronger our movement becomes. The more voters will get the message that equality affects everyone and is worthy of the support of all, regardless of their circumstances.

Let's not play divide and rule. Let's not engage in reverse wedge politics against ourselves.

Instead, let's celebrate the founding and distinctive principle that motivates our movement, and that is more relevant to New Zealand's future prospects than it has been for many years.

Campaign School mulling

I've spent the weekend in Hamilton at the first Young Labour campaign school.

It's been an interesting couple of days for a number of reasons. The turnout was fantastic — around about sixty attendees not counting presenters. There was a good broad range of topics, from elections to issues campaigning and thinking about messaging and communications.

Ten years after the first Summer School, which is a Labour Party event organised by Young Labour, a campaigning focus like this is well timed and much needed. Campaigning is core business for a political party and we don't make enough effort to teach people how to do it.

It is not for me to go into any specific detail about what was covered, but some reflections:

• issues campaigning is getting more important as a way to drive emotional connection between the party and various groups of voters — done well it is a strength.
• knowing the political context as it is, not as you sort of wish or hope it might be, should be obvious but isn't always.
• another reminder about the importance of repetition to get messages through. We are so, so, so bad at this in many ways and it's entirely down to us to get that right. Narrative is similar.

Again and again too, through the weekend, was acknowledgement of the climate change challenge we face. If any part of the Labour Party is going to lead a new approach here, YL is going to be critical to the effort.

Good event, continuing with local govt campaigning next.

Olympics

Have you been watching? I've seen the odd bit on Prime and plan to see the closing ceremony this morning.

Britain's neurosis about whether it would be able to pull the event together has been a sight to see the past few years. I never thought there would be a problem: the idea a big developed country would fail at organising a sport tournament was never tenable.

I'm glad they're pleased about it. Seems to have gone well. And soon the Spice Girls will be on stage once more...

Political Leadership and #MarriageEquality

Change is a tough thing sometimes.

This post is about political change, its history in New Zealand, and why Labour MPs need to grasp the nettle and support Marriage Equality, as a core part of Labour's vision for a country where everybody belongs.

Political parties and movements that are progressive secure change by changing people's minds about issues. They do not ride with the grain of current opinion in those issues where change is demanded: they challenge it, they confront and cajole and persuade, and change people's minds.

New Zealand has a long history of such persuasion. It's a give and take process between movements and the broader electorate. You have the debate, you shift a bit more towards where the public are, and they have shifted a ways in your direction too. You keep pushing, and keep shifting opinion.

That's how the welfare state was founded. Labour's vision for the Social Security Act in 1938 would have been impossible in 1928. It was the experience of the Depression, and the constant campaigning by Labour party politicians and activists all around the country, that changed the public's view. From villages in the south Waikato to hamlets in central Otago to mining towns on the West Coast to Queen Street: Labour made the case and changed views.

Change always happens that way.

Look at the attitudes of Pakeha New Zealand towards Pacific migrants that were exposed by the ugly campaign Rob Muldoon ran in 1975. Dawn raids, attacks on overstayers, blatant racism and fearmongering about interracial marriage, crime, jobs and more were all exposed.

Today such views are held by many fewer people.

Politicians and campaigners made the case for equality and justice and inclusion, and those views have spread. New Zealand today takes great pride in Pacific communities and the diversity they bring to the country, and the links back to the Pacific Islands that they represent. I do not believe there would be many, if any, New Zealanders around today who have a fundamental problem with Pacific migrants and the Pacific communities of this country.

Those campaigns were underpinned by the core values the Labour Party stands for: the moral and legal equality of all people, a respect for and celebration of diversity, a championing of the personal freedoms we all need to thrive and flourish, and an abiding sense of fairness that said it simply did not make sense to treat people from the Pacific as second class citizens in our own country.

Of course, Pacific peoples are only one example. The direction has been consistent for women (suffrage onwards), for Maori, for people with disabilities and for homosexuals.

The direction is the direction of justice for all. It isn't perfect: there is still sexism and racism and homophobia and colonialism and fear of those who are different. But we have made this country a better place through the exercise of values, argued for and expressed through a democratic system.

In every one of these cases, the message has been profound. It has been a message of love. It has been a message of respect. It has said to people:

"You too are one of us. We share our fears, our hopes, our dreams. Come into our house. Be with us. Together we are one."

It is impossible, I think, to overstate the importance of that reality.

Our country is the country it is today because love has trumped fear in all of these stories.

Today, in a legal sense, we are near the end of that progression for equality for LGBT+ New Zealanders. Civil Unions were a step along the way, and they were important. They came only 18 years after homosexuality itself was decriminalised. But they are not the answer.

It all comes back to love and respect. Does our community include all of us? Or are we, those of us who are gay, to be told that we are second class citizens?

My own view is of course on the side of justice and equality. It would be regardless of the fact I am gay. To me, the struggles for fairness and equality are all linked. I take seriously the notion, expressed among other places in the Bible, that we are each other's keepers.

To me, the fight to end sexism and racism is the same as the fight to end homophobia.

It's the same as the fight against fear of those with disabilities.

It's about making the case that WE ARE ALL EQUAL. Not the same: we are gloriously diverse. But equal.

Equally worthy of respect and honour.

Equally worthy of the justice of the land being ours in the law.

Equally open to love.

Equally deserving to be treated as fully human.

These values are what unites the Labour Party and the Labour movement.

It is why a blokey as hell tradesman from Te Atatu, a Samoan minister in Mangere, a shearer in Te Awamutu, a lecturer in Dunedin and a nurse in Christchurch are all on the same side, why people like that all vote for Labour.

They know, and I know, that the promise of a better land and a better future requires us all to be on each other's side, fighting against those who would tell us we don't belong, don't deserve a fair go.

Labour MPs know in their hearts the values their party is founded on. They know that parts of their communities are on a journey to finding those values congenial. They know that some people will be opposed to Marriage Equality, just as some are opposed to Equal Pay for Equal Work, and some are opposed to migration to these islands.

They know they have, in their role, a special responsibility: to bend their energies to the widest possible spread of those Labour values that make New Zealand better for everyone.

So I expect Labour MPs to be out there talking about this issue, and making the case in favour of equality, and explaining to all why it's just a part of a bigger picture:

Building a country where we all belong.

That's what Labour is for. That's what leadership is about: making a difference and bringing about a better future.