Harawira symbolises divide between haves, have-nots

by Finlay MacDonald
from stuff.co.nz

When it comes to dealing with Hone Harawira, the options for the Maori Party aren't great. But whatever the outcome of the suspension hearing, the schism Harawira emblemises won't go away, because there is a fundamental divide opening up within what is rather simplistically referred to as "Maoridom". It's the divide between the haves and have-nots.

Harawira's problem with his party is usually portrayed as being about his dissatisfaction with their role in supporting and legitimising a National-led government. Thus the dispute can be characterised as one between pragmatism and idealism. As Pita Sharples put it, "If the Maori Party cannot establish itself as a bona fide partner in a government, then our chance is gone and probably there will never be another Maori party."

In other words, Harawira is risking the very future of co-ordinated, self-determining Maori representation in parliament with his radical rhetoric and uncompromising style. Getting a lot less attention, especially in the mainstream (dare one say Pakeha?) media, is what the Maori Party itself is risking in the process of trying to behave like a "bona fide partner in a government".

On the options facing Hone Harawira

by Gordon Campbell
25 January 2011

In the immediate aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk issued the famous (and famously scary) verdict : “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.” For some months, Hone Harawira and the Maori Party leadership have been locked in a similar eyeball-to-eyeball blinking contest, one with equal risks of mutual destruction.

Until mid 2010, the Te Tai Tokerau MP and his party leaders had managed a relatively sustainable level of marital bickering. Sure, there were disputes over policy and territory, but the conflict seemed manageable because there were clear advantages for both sides in not letting matters get out of hand. The Maori Party could use Harawira as a badge of integrity to constituents troubled by its co-operation with the Key government – if Hone could still wear it, the gains must be substantial, right? – while Harawira clearly enjoyed the perks of being a Maori Party MP, and owed his party a debt of gratitude on that score. It has been very reminiscent of the situation Sue Bradford faced in the Greens as the credible representative of the social justice planks of the party – at the same time as the Greens leadership were quietly dialling back those issues during the 2008 election campaign, for electoral gain.

Hone Harawira: Crunch time for Maori grumbles

By Hone Harawira
Sunday Star Times

A FEW MONTHS ago my daughter said to me, “Dad, you know I’ll always vote for you, but I just can’t bring myself to vote for the Maori Party any longer. I don’t like what I see your mates doing, so I’m gonna vote for the Greens.”

That was a bit of a kick in the bum for me, having led the hikoi that gave birth to the Maori Party, but actually it wasn’t that unexpected. The rumblings of discontent have been growing for some time, and it’s election year now so we either deal with that discontent soon or we just might lose some votes come crunch time.

And we’ve been lucky really. We’re only six years old so everything about the Maori Party is still new – first Maori party in parliament, first Maori party in government, first ministers appointed to cabinet from a party voted in by Maori. And still the only independent Maori voice in parliament, although that independence is being increasingly questioned these days.

Moana Jackson on new foreshore and seabed law

A further primer on the foreshore and seabed
the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill

Formatted printable version

---

8 September 2010

‘I once spoke of our people who have their mana attacked being like a beached whale struggling to live … what I say now is to remember how often the sea casts the whale on the shore’. - Te Ataria, 1889.

‘The question that must always be asked of legislation is not whether it is a legislative compromise or even whether it is practical, but whether it is just’. - Justice Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court, 1970.

Abstract

This Primer is part of material produced for hui within Ngati Kahungunu on the foreshore and seabed that began with the original proposals put forward on the issue by the last government in 2003.

It addresses some of the main parts of the new Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill and asks questions about the new regime it establishes for the foreshore and seabed.

It tries to provide some context for the Bill by considering the grounds that have compelled Maori to so forcefully and consistently voice concern about the issue over the last several years - it considers the attempts the people have made to avoid being ‘beached’ by the various Crown proposals since 2003.

It also tries to apply the test for legislative legitimacy outlined by Justice Marshall and assesses whether the Bill is just.

It regrettably concludes that it is not.

It further concludes that the proposed Bill simply consolidates the main inequities of the 2004 Seabed and Foreshore Act that the Waitangi Tribunal found to be problematic in terms of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination held to be racially discriminatory.

In that context the Prime Minister’s statement that the Bill will be a full and final settlement of the issue is simply inaccurate because rather than removing the injustice it actually compounds it.  

- Moana Jackson

National refuses support on GST food exemption bill

From Radio New Zealand
Updated at 6:10pm on 21 July 2010

National won't support a Maori Party member's bill to remove GST from healthy foods, saying it doesn't want the law changed.

Rahui Katene's bill would scrap GST from foods, including fruit and vegetables, breads and cereals, milk products and lean meats.

The bill is due to be debated by Parliament, but won't get past its first reading.

Prime Minister John Key says it is difficult to demarcate between different food groups and the loss of revenue - estimated by the Government at $360 million a year - would be high.

Mr Key says the GST system is simple and exempting some items would start a trend.
But Ms Katene says financial transactions are already excluded from GST.

She also says Australia's tax office has a computerised model for GST on food and beverages, which would made it an easy matter to manage.

Copyright © 2010 Radio New Zealand

Stuff: Bill removing GST from healthy food drawn

from Stuff website

A Maori Party bill that would remove GST from healthy food could come up for debate in Parliament in the next few weeks.

MP Rahui Katene drafted the member's bill, which has been drawn from the ballot that is used to decide which ones reach the debating chamber. Two or three bills are usually drawn every second Wednesday Parliament sits.

It is likely to go on Parliament's agenda for a first reading debate when Parliament returns from recess next Tuesday.

The Government is expected to oppose the bill, which means it won't pass its first reading, but Ms Katene is gathering as much support as she can from other parties and hopes National will change its mind.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said today her proposal wasn't viable because if some items were exempted from GST there would be demands for others to be given the same treatment.

He said removing GST from the food specificed in the bill would mean the loss of millions of tax dollars which would have to be found somewhere else.

Ms Katene is appealing for the bill to be at least put through its first reading so it can go to a select committee for public submissions.

Her Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill says food prices have risen more than 20 percent in the last three years while real incomes have risen only very slightly.

"While all consumers will benefit from the removal of goods and services tax from healthy food, those on lower incomes spend a greater proportion of their income on food and will receive a significant benefit as a result," it says.

"Research conducted both in New Zealand and overseas shows that the lowering of the price of healthy food ... leads to a significant increase in purchases of healthy food."

The bill defines healthy food as fruit and vegetables, breads and cereals, milk and milk products excluding ice cream, cream products, condensed and flavoured milk, and lean meat, poultry, seafood ,eggs, nuts, seeds and legumes.

The GST rise big story of the Budget

By David

The GST rise is definitely the big story of the Budget, even Greenpeace’s press release focuses on it.

Although, disappointingly, they call for the “strengthening” rather than scrapping of the ETS pollution market, and offer an endorsement of the UK’s new Tory leader David Cameron, who allegedly possesses “some forward-thinking and visionary ideas.” (Which is news to me, as I was under the impression he was just another Margaret Thatcher / Tony Blair corporate clone... rather like John Key.)

The focus on this regressive tax increase, rather than the cuts in income tax is bad news for National and a another sign that the public mood is turning against the Government.

In their official statement, the Maori Party did their best to accentuate the positive, by listing all the little projects that got funding, and asking their supporters not to focus on GST:

“We know that the biggest challenge will be in encouraging our constituency to look broader at the whole picture of the budget – rather than focusing on one measure in isolation.”

But such a focus is unavoidable. As Maori Party MP Hone Harawira put’s it:

“GST hits poor people the hardest because nearly all of their money is spent on things that you pay GST on – food, petrol, electricity – so any increase is going to really hurt them.”

That extra 2.5% will be increasing the impact of every peak oil petrol price hike, and every world commodity market induced rise in cheese or bread.

Harawira’s personal statement against the GST rise, and his request to party leaders for permission to vote against the increase, have earned both praise and criticism.

Marty G at The Standard urged Harawira to “have the courage of his convictions” and cross the floor to vote against the Budget even with out his party’s permission. In the event, Harawira’s vote, along with those of the five other Maori Party MPs went for the Budget.

Comments on the post have suggested that voting for the Budget makes Harawira a wimp, a sell-out or a blowhard. But while I would have applauded Harawira had he crossed the floor, I think it would have been a tactical error for him to go against the wishes of his party leaders, at this time.

The right wing of the Maori Party have already tried to force him out, for the trivial offence of using offensive language when pointing out the crimes of Pakeha parliamentarians in a private email. To break ranks over this issue would only given them another excuse.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia had the support of (and was under pressure from) a hikoi of tens of thousands before she broke with Labour over the foreshore and seabed act. Who does Hone Harawira have? How many people took to the streets against the GST rise?

The only thing coming close is the few dozen of us who went out today to launch the Socialist Worker – Alliance petition calling for GST to be removed from food and financial speculation to be taxed.

GST off healthy food: a broad campaign is the right thing to do

by Vaughan Gunson

Gordon Campbell, editor of the online magazine Werewolf, has written an invaluable article, Do the Right Thing, that completely knocks the stuffing out of all the arguments against taking GST off food.

Campbell’s well researched and timely article draws on the Australian experience – where there's no GST on basic food – to destroy the chimerical argument that it’s too hard to exempt food from GST. In Australia, current computer technology makes the exemption process easy.

In December last year, the Australian Taxation Office released a computer package that makes it quite simple for a lot of businesses to manage the food exemptions. The same technology could be adapted for New Zealand. The supposed difficulty has been one of the main excuses used by defenders of across-the-board GST, including the leadership of both National and Labour. But there are options available which would overcome any major inconvenience for retailers.

Campbell also highlights the results of a research project released in March this year by the Wellington School of Medicine, which confirmed that price decisively determined people’s food choices at the supermarket. Despite education on healthy foods, when it came to loading up the trolley, people went for the cheaper options, even if they were less healthy. From the study, the conclusion of Professor Tony Blakely is that price intervention works in encouraging people to choose healthier food. The research gives support to Maori Party MP Rahui Katene’s private members' bill to remove GST from healthy food.

As Campbell correctly points out, what makes GST on food an immediate issue is the government’s plan to increase GST to 15% and lower income tax. That shift, Campbell says, “will leave more money in the pockets of the relatively well off, and place a heavier burden on workers on low incomes, and on beneficiaries. That’s because those on benefits and the working poor have less discretionary income, and spend a higher proportion of their income on basics, such as food.” The poor will be worse off from the proposed tax changes, while the rich will get the benefits.

And this is the crux of the debate, it’s not about degrees of difficultly or “tax anomalies”, it’s about where you stand on tax justice for grassroots people. As Campbell asks: “why not do something so easy, so readily manageable by business, so justifiable on grounds of social justice, and so likely to deliver practical health benefits to the community?”

The answer for the National government – and the Labour leadership also, who are refusing so far to budge – is that removing GST from food would undermine a central pillar of neo-liberalism. GST is a regressive tax that has strong support within corporate, banking and government circles.

Removing GST from food would be a decisive step towards shifting the tax burden off grassroots people. At the same time it would de-legitimise the tax in the eyes of many people.

We know the call to remove GST off food is popular. In 2008, a small group of activists from RAM-Residents Action Movement collected nearly 30,000 signatures in a matter of months. Opinion polls and everyday conversations point to continued opposition to our food being taxed.

With food prices rising dramatically, and many global experts predicting further sharp increases in 2010, the cost of food for grassroots people will be major issue, which will bubble into the media and become a political issue. We can expect any re-launch of the GST off food campaign to be met with widespread support.

Rahui Katene's private member's bill to remove GST from healthy food will have the best chance of getting the support it needs from MPs – particularly Labour MPs – if there's a high profile campaign outside of parliament. That campaign could include a number of organisations and groups working together.

In 2008, RAM's GST-off-food campaign received support from the Maori Party, Grey Power and individual trade unions. Today, a number of other groups outside of parliament, like the Alliance, Child Poverty Action, Socialist Aotearoa, Global Peace and Justice Auckland, the Workers Party, and the NZ Council of Trade Unions, have positions which are critical of GST. This common ground would suggest there’s potential for a broad coalition in support of removing GST from healthy food. A broad coalition, if achieved, would provide the necessary capacity to mount a serious campaign in support of Rahui Katene's private members' bill.

Campaigning for GST off healthy food would require any coalition to raise tax alternatives to address the prospective government revenue loss. A frontrunner would have to be a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) or Robin Hood Tax, as it's been recently named by a popular campaign in Britain.

A Robin Hood Tax targets the banks and the mega-wealthy. Following the global financial implosion, and the role played by the banks and other financial speculators, the time is right to popularise a tax which hits the most hated global purveyors of greed and exploitation. There's already support among a number of grassroots organisations for a Financial Transaction Tax, many of the same ones that oppose GST. So the potential for cooperation exists.

Initiating a broad campaign to remove GST from healthy food would be an important step towards achieving tax justice for grassroots New Zealanders. In recent months there’s been significant cooperation around Unite’s $15ph minimum wage petition, which has been encouraging. A campaign to remove GST from healthy food would deliver similar tangible benefits to grassroots people and also mount a political challenge to neo-liberalism, especially if combined with advocacy of a Robin Hood Tax that targets the banks and other financial speculators. It’s time to do the right thing and join together in a broad campaign that could spark a wider grassroots political resurgence.

It’s interesting that in the comments to Gordon Campbell’s article, two people who support removing GST from food ask very similar questions. Duncan Graham asks: “[W]here’s the political will to push this proposal?... When are we going to get a party with the energy to really run with an issue, particularly one with such widespread benefits?”

And Liz asks: “When are we going to get a viable opposition party that will push for things like this, strongly and loudly?” Something else for us to think about.

Vaughan Gunson is the national chair of Socialist Worker-New Zealand and the campaign manager for Bad Banks. To contact Vaughan email svpl(at)xtra.co.nz or ph/txt 021-0415 082.

See also Hey, Labour MPs, why not support GST off food?

Maori Party should not support Nat’s GST hike

Rahui Katene, Finance Spokesperson for the Maori Party, has hit out at National’s proposed rise in GST. In a speech to Parliament on Tuesday 9 February, she said:

It would appear that we are shifting the burden of taxation from the people who can pay it to those who can’t. For those at the top income level, there are ways and means of claiming the GST back – they can set up trusts, they can increase rents, they can make the end user pay. But for those at the bottom level, there is no other place they can claim the money back from.

Katene who is the sponsor for the Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill, repeated her party’s call for GST to be removed from healthy food. And for the first $25,000 of income to be tax free. She also expressed Maori Party support for “a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour”. Despite this, Katene and the other Maori Party MPs look likely to vote for the increase, as part of their “confidence and supply” agreement with National. The central issue appears to be the “compensation” the Government says it will pay to pensioners, beneficiaries and low income workers with children (through Working for Families), and the promise that low income workers will get tax cuts as well as the wealthy. However, such measures will provide short term relief at best. As prices continue to rise, compensation will be eaten away. A 2.5 percent increase in GST will continue taking money out of our pockets forever. Economic justice for the majority (e.g. the the 70 percent whose incomes are less that $40,000) means opposing a GST increase and tax cuts for the rich and all other moves that shift “the burden of taxation from the people who can pay it to those who can’t.” It means campaigning to take GST off food, to reduce taxes on the working poor and increase taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations – who’s ultimate source of wealth is the exploitation of workers and the natural environment. Through their support for taking GST off food, the Maori Party have made a stronger contribution to this campaign than any other party in Parliament. They should stand by this commitment and refuse to support National’s GST hike.

Above: Hone Harawira, Maori Party MP for Te Tai Tokerau, signing RAM’s the GST-off-food petition at the Kaitaia Markets

Rahui Katene: Shifting the burden of taxation to those who can’t pay

Rahui Katene

Finance Spokesperson for the Maori Party Prime Minister’s Debate Tuesday 9 February 2010

There was a statement that the Prime Minister made in his speech this afternoon that I am sure would be endorsed by every single member of the Maori Party – and I’m talking about the 23,000 members not just the five in this House. It was the recognition that he was “impressed and heartened by the resilience and optimism of New Zealanders and by their desire to do better for themselves, their families and their communities”. As I travel across Te Tai Tonga I am frequently in contact with people who are struggling to survive. The median family income for my constituents is $54,500 – some five thousand less than the median family income for New Zealand as a whole. Five thousand dollars that makes a difference at the petrol pump, at the supermarket checkout, at the pharmacy, at the bank. Today we are asking those same people to agree to a rise in GST to 15 percent. GST, of course, is an issue dear to my heart. Tomorrow, I will once again submit into the ballot my private members bill, the Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill. This is a bill which has directly responded to the situation for the people of Te Tai Tonga; the people of the Maori electorate, every day New Zealanders who are powerfully motivated by the desire to do better for themselves, their families and their communities. These every day New Zealanders have suffered from the impact of food prices which have risen more than twenty percent in the last three years, while real incomes have risen only very slightly. Within that, we know that increases for the staples of a nutritious diet – such as fruit, vegetables and milk – have been particularly high. In response to the long term impacts this could have on public health, organisations such as the Public Health Association of New Zealand Inc and the Heart Foundation of New Zealand, have called for goods and services tax to be removed from foods which constitute a healthy diet to make them more affordable. I repeat – their call is for GST to be removed – not to rocket up to 15%. I want to make it absolutely clear that the challenge faced by many of our families is of the harshest kind. It is our families who suffer from the reality that New Zealand’s after tax distribution is one of the most unequal in the OECD. It is our families, disproportionately, who are suffering from the unacceptable level of child poverty. Rates which are so dire that the 2008 Survey of Living Standards reported 19 percent of children are experiencing serious hardship and unacceptably severe restrictions on their living standards. Mr Speaker, these are the faces of the families that I take with me into this debate. We are pleased that our consistent call to remember these families has been reflected in the announcements made earlier today by the Prime Minister. We have welcomed the decision of the Government that any decrease in personal tax would be done across the board. If there are across the board personal tax cuts, then we will certainly be doing everything we can to ensure that our people will see some sort of benefit. We have certainly noted the statement of the Prime Minister that fairness is a very important consideration to this Government. And so we will be talking closely with the Government about finding a common context for what we mean by fair. Is it fair that 51% of beneficiary families with children are ranked as experiencing serious hardship? Is it fair that 28% of families with children had serious health problems for at least one child in the past year? Is it fair that for 22% of families keeping the house warm is described as a major problem, with another 17 percent saying that dampness or mould were major problems? The challenge we face as a Parliament, is to ensure that the current levels of inequality and poverty are not intensified by the tax package highlighted today. It would appear that we are shifting the burden of taxation from the people who can pay it to those who can’t. For those at the top income level, there are ways and means of claiming the GST back – they can set up trusts, they can increase rents, they can make the end user pay. But for those at the bottom level, there is no other place they can claim the money back from. And so we will be greatly interested in the discussions around fairness and equitable outcomes, particularly as they relate to the low income. The key thing for us is that there is an opportunity for dialogue; and within that we hope to put forward some of the key ideas that we have promoted from the Maori Party. And so I go back to that collective desire that I would hope we share across this House, to respond to the aspiration of the people to do better for themselves, their families and their communities. As a first start we must do something to unacceptable levels of serious hardship that compromise living standards. We must increase the minimum wage – and by more than 25 cents – we want to see a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour. We are greatly pleased that the benefits, superannuation and working for families policies will be increased to assist people on low incomes. Now if we were really to show a level of responsibility for those more vulnerable, we would put measures in place to ensure that the first $25,000 of income is tax free. We need leaders who see that small is the new big. We need visionaries who can create opportunities for a new economy, who are not mired in old thinking and tainted by the existing economy. We need more Grameen banks - we need community banks. Vision is what we need – not more of the same. And so as a Coalition Partner with the Government we expect to be involved in discussions concerning the nature of the income support provided to New Zealanders. We do support the goals of reducing dependency on benefits, but it is absolutely critical that at the same time we maintain an appropriate safety net for those in genuine need. We are really concerned about the vulnerability of sole parents to fluctuating income. Sudden change can often have a detrimental effect on the whole whanau. We know that far too easily families go further into debt just to meet the basic costs of food, rent and power. For too many of these families the opportunity to take up full time work is simply not available. While we are supportive of efforts to gain better entry of Maori into the workforce, we will not accept any proposals which threaten the capacity of whanau to be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living. We do not want to see our whanau in a worse off position through any of the ideas being floated. And in this regard, I am honour bound to remind the House that in the design of the Working for Families, the policy architects of that scheme effectively cut out the poorest 200,000 children who have been left, floundering, in increasing poverty. Finally I bring us back to a concept that resonates with tangata whenua – He aha te mea nui o te Ao, what is the most important thing in the world? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It is people, it is people, it is people.

Maori Party - Take the GST off healthy food

Rahui Katene, Finance Spokesperson
20 January 2010

Maori Party finance spokesperson, Rahui Katene, has welcomed the Government’s statement this afternoon that any changes to the tax system would have to meet tests of equity and fairness, alongside delivering benefits for households and the economy.

“In that context, the recommendation from Bob Buckle’s Tax Working Group that GST should be raised to 15% clearly doesn’t make sense”.

“If we want to do anything to achieve equity and fairness it would be to remove goods and services tax from healthy food”.

“I have a private members bill all ready to go, which will address rising food prices and the impact this has on the ability of those in low income households to purchase healthy food by exempting this food from goods and services tax” said Mrs Katene.

“While all consumers will benefit from the removal of GST from healthy food, those on lower incomes spend a greater proportion of their income on food and will receive a significant benefit as a result. Research conducted both here and overseas shows that lowering the price of healthy food, including via the removal of taxes similar to GST, leads to a significant increase in the purchase of healthy food”.

"Increases for the staples of a nutritious diet – such as fruit, vegetables and milk – have been particularly high. It is increasingly important that healthy food be affordable".

“If Mr English is really keen to help families to get ahead, he will be ringing the Maori Party to place my Bill on the Government’s Order Paper” said Mrs Katene.

“What’s so positive about my Bill is that it not only seeks to exempt healthy food from goods and services tax but it is also about encouraging the purchase of healthy food” said Mrs Katene.

“That’s benefits for households, the economy and the health of the nation all in one clean sweep”.

All-party support for pollution market is the real ETS outrage

by David UNITYblog editor
Outrage has greeted the deal reached between the National and Maori Parties over the pollution market policy (emissions trading scheme or ETS). But the really terrible thing is not the Maori Party’s sell out, or the details of the deal -- and both these are horrible -- it’s the fact that a pollution market is only response to climate change any party in parliament can come up with. Just as bad (or even worse) is that the major environmental groups campaigning for action on climate change -- Greenpeace and 350 -- are also putting their faith in the pollution market approach. They should be blowing the lid on the world-wide pollution market con-job. Because, although the details of the National-Maori Party version may be worse than the Labour-Green version, which ever way you look at it, emissions trading stinks. It won’t do a thing to reduce pollution or prevent climate change. All pollution markets are based around giving corporate polluters the right to pollute, the right to profit from buying and selling pollution credits and the right to pass any costs they do incur on to their customers. All assume that rather than actually cutting emissions, or fundamentally changing they way they do things (this would hurt profits too much) polluting industries will be able to buy “off set” credits from somewhere else (who knows where?). All these schemes ignore the fact that to transition to a low carbon economy will require a massive transformation of how we do just about everything. And this will require planning and co-ordination and should require democratic participation, not rising prices and blind faith in the market. Recognising the reality of pollution market politics, begs the question: is the Maori Party’s support for National’s ETS any worse than the Green’s support for Labour’s ETS? After all, climate change is the issue the Greens should be making a stand and giving leadership. In my view, neither Labour nor the Greens have any right to criticise the Maori Party until they themselves oppose pollution market madness.

John Minto: Politicians fiddle while climate collapses

From Stuff 15/09/2009 National and the the Maori Party traded their way closer to environmental catastrophe yesterday with a deal agreed to amend the Emissions Trading Scheme passed in the last term of the Labour government. It’s a deal with no winners and the environment, which in the end means all of us, the big loser. The previous Labour proposals had too little regard for the environment but this one has even less. Politicians are by the nature of their employment short-term thinkers. The three-year electoral cycle dominates decision-making. For National it’s simply delivering the review of the ETS which Act demanded as part of its election agreement, while future generations will regard the Maori Party role as simply trading opportunities for future generations for temporary baubles as in some of the land transactions of the past. There is simply no mechanism for climate change to be prevented under capitalism. For its very survival capitalism depends on growth. It’s like a pyramid selling scheme where confidence in the system relies on the belief we can always move forward with more and more consumers into an infinite future. Each individual is encouraged to believe we need a bigger cake rather than sharing the cake more evenly. Growth is the mantra of the marketeers while the environment is crying out -- enough! Many would say, and I include myself here, that capitalism has been going head to head with humanity for the past 300 years. Now climate change is where capitalism goes head to head with the life-support systems of the planet itself. I read recently a quote to the effect that asking capitalism to voluntarily stop growing is like asking a person to voluntarily stop breathing. The capitalist response to climate change has predictably been to create a market for carbon -- a so-called “cap and trade” arrangement whereby the levels of carbon would be capped and permits to pollute traded in a market. It’s one of those schemes which sounds plausible on paper but which will be quite impossible to work globally. It would set in concrete the injustices faced by developing countries that have seen their resources exploited to drive up living standards elsewhere in the world while delivering so little local benefit. It allows the worst polluters to purchase the right to keep polluting. There's an old proverb among the indigenous Indian population of North America which says a tribe would look seven generations into the past and seven into the future before major decisions related to the environment were made. Those people were in tune with their world. Maori in New Zealand were not here long enough to reach such a profoundly sustainable view of this land and its resources and Pakeha arriving here saw only resources to exploit. The combined efforts of National and the Maori Party have created an agreement with less than a generation in foresight. New Zealand is taking to Copenhagen the equivalent of a damp piece of paper to fight a bushfire.

GST – Don't raise it, take it off food!

Media release RAM – Residents Action Movement 20 August, 2009 RAM – Residents Action Movement is offering full support to a private member's bill from Maori Party MP Rahui Katene. The bill, announced yesterday, aims to remove GST from food. Last year RAM initiated a People's Procession to Parliament, delivering a petition to remove GST from all our food. The petition, signed by more than 25,000 people, is now before Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee. "This private member's bill is needed now more than ever", said RAM chair Grant Brookes. "Grassroots people are feeling the pinch of the recession. Food prices are increasing twice as fast as last year, according to the Otago University Nutrition Department. "Getting GST off food is a simple step the government could take right now to help families struggling to pay the bills. But instead, finance minister Bill English is showing National's real agenda as a party of the market by considering proposals to increase GST, to 15 or 20 percent. "Although opinion polls showed more than three quarters of people wanted GST off food, the Maori Party was the only party in parliament to support our petition last year. "Will the Greens and Labour now honour their claims to be standing up for ordinary Kiwis and back Rahui Katene's private member's bill?" Read Rahui Katene's speech to parliament GST off food.

Victory for foreshore and seabed Hikoi

A government report, from a panel established as the result of the Maori Party's support deal with National, will lead to the scrapping of Labour's foreshore and seabed legislation. This is a victory for all of us who marched in the Hikoi in 2004. It's also an apparant vindication of the Maori Party's controversial decision to support the National-led government. According to the NZ Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/maori/news/article.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=10581977&ref=rss

The report says Labour's law must go, but talks are needed over the new system. Maori tribes may be given legal title to parts of the foreshore and seabed separately or jointly with the Crown if the Government adopts the suggestions of its ministerial review panel. The panel's report, issued yesterday, describes the Foreshore and Seabed Act as severely discriminatory to Maori and "the single biggest land nationalisation statute enacted in New Zealand history".. "As we see it, once the respective rights have been resolved in any particular area of the foreshore and seabed, the beneficial and perhaps the legal title for the area would be held by the entitled hapu or iwi, or the Crown, or both jointly ... " The panel, chaired by former High Court judge Eddie Durie, said new policy should start with the assumption that hapu and iwi held customary title over the foreshore and seabed. It was an "open question" whether customary interests should be treated as exclusive ownership, complete with rights to income from commercial activities such as mining, and such a question could be addressed only through negotiations between the Government, the public and affected iwi.

Hackles will be raised by talk of “exclusive ownership, complete with rights to income from commercial activities such as mining”. For some it will confirm suspicions that all those Maori want to do is make money. Such fears need to be kept in context. A key aim of Labour's seabed and foreshore law was to ensure the Crown's ownership of the seabed and foreshore was undisputed, so that it could profit from selling off the rights to these resources to fish farming and mining interests. It's neither surprising or outrageous that some Maori feel they should be entitled to a share of the proceeds. Maori, like the population in general, is divided between the rich and rest. The creation of a Maori middle class with jobs as consultants and bureaucrats and an elite of “corporate warriors” who managed the million-dollar assets of iwi corporations was a deliberate part of the Treaty Settlements in the 80s and 90s. Meanwhile the economic reforms and recessions of that time hit working class Maori hardest of all, adding to the legacy of colonialism and ongoing racism. Maori (again like everyone else) will also be divided over whether to preserve or pillage these resources, or whether the coast and sea should be seen as something more than just an economic resource. On this last question, capitalism's demand for resource-depleting economic growth clearly conflicts with Maori traditions of sustainable interaction with the natural world. These traditions are potential source of strength for all ecological activists.

Marxism Alive 2009 conference video, Part 1

Several dozen activists attended Socialist Worker's Marxism Alive conference on June 27. It was broadest gathering of the Left in Auckland in recent memory. Over the course of the day-long educational forum, the panel speakers and participants contributed to a penetrating analysis of trends and charted moves to unify the Left. A series of video highlights from key debates will be posted on UNITYblogNZ over the coming days.

Is National the new natural party of government? Will Labour return to social democracy?

Daphna Whitmore, Workers Party

Sarita Divis, Alliance Party

Grant Brookes, Socialist Worker

Workers must be protected during recession, not exploited - Maori Party

Media release Hon Tariana Turia, MP for Te Tai Hauauru 28 November 2008 The crisis of global capitalism is no excuse for business to exploit workers, according to the Maori Party. Te Tai Hauauru MP and Party co-leader Tariana Turia was responding to reports that Business New Zealand has urged the government to restrict employees’ rights, cut back recognition of unions, privatise ACC and limit environmental protections. “The Maori Party strongly opposes this response to the global economic crisis,” said Mrs Turia. “An economic recession is no excuse to exploit workers, in order to protect the profit margins and lifestyles of business owners.” “Workers, as taxpayers, are stumping up with a $7 billion economic stimulus package to keep the economy going,” she said. “There is no way the Maori Party would support these measures, if the business sector is not prepared to stand alongside the workers who are helping them out.” “It is almost obscene to hear that business lobbyists are urging the government to use the economic situation as a smokescreen to attack workers’ rights. In my own electorate of Te Tai Hauauru, hundreds of workers have already been laid off as factories and mills have closed in Foxton, Feilding, Tokoroa and Putaruru. “Communities have been decimated, and Business New Zealand wants to make it easier for others to repeat this up and down the country. “We will get through the crisis if we stand together as a nation, but we face disaster if one sector attacks another because it cannot see past its own, limited self-interest,” said Mrs Turia.

FEATURE ARTICLE: Protecting the people from the market crisis

by GRANT MORGAN chair of RAM - Residents Action Movement 19 November 2008 VALUING THE MAJORITY RAM wants a society based on the values of humanity, ecology, co-operation, equity and democracy. (For fuller details, go to The RAM Plan on http://www.ram.org.nz/.) These are the default values of workers, Maori, leftists, ecologists, immigrants, intellectuals, pensioners, feminists, religious believers, students, small proprietors and others at the grassroots who make up the vast majority of citizens.

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RAM asks CTU for democratic debate & vote on 'pollution market'

Residents Action Movement Media release 5 September 2008 Over the last four years, RAM (Residents Action Movement) has been campaigning for free and frequent public transport in main centres. "Free and frequent trains and buses, funded by a switch of government money from highways and car tunnels, is a boldly realistic policy in an era of global warming, peak oil and traffic jams," said Roger Fowler, RAM's transport speaker. "This one policy change would do far more to tackle carbon emissions than the entire Emissions Trading Scheme being driven by the Labour, Green and NZ First parties. And it would keep more money in the pockets of workers." "It is very disappointing to see the Green politicians supporting Labour's drive to pass the ETS legislation," says Elliott Blade, RAM's environmental co-speaker and parliamentary candidate for Maungakiekie. "This law will establish a pollution market in New Zealand where corporations make money out of global warming while life-threatening emissions keep on rising." Like RAM, the Maori Party has come out strongly against the ETS. Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell told Parliament on 2 September that, in addition to Treaty of Waitangi concerns over the ETS, the Maori Party opposes the scheme because:

• It would not be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• It is "not transparent".
• "Polluters do not pay", but instead receive massive subsidies that amount to "corporate welfare".
• Therefore the stated aim of economic incentives to cut emissions is "defeated".

"The Maori Party's exposure of the ETS makes them the foremost ecological party in the current Parliament," says Michelle Ducat, environmental co-speaker for RAM. "The mantle of ecological guardian has slipped from the shoulders of the Green Party onto the Maori Party." Meanwhile the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) has come out with qualified support for the ETS. On 2 September, CTU economist Peter Conway said that climate change policy should "not rely too substantially on market-based mechanisms such as emissions trading". However, Mr Conway flagged CTU support for the ETS "compromise" reached between Labour, NZ First and the Greens, including the one-off electricity rebate to all households in 2010 and the one-off cash payment to beneficiaries, seniors and low-wage workers. While admitting that "this bill is not perfect", Mr Conway claimed "the risks of not taking concrete steps outweigh any disadvantages". RAM has serious concerns about the CTU's stance on the politics of global warming and how the ETS will impact on workers. "The CTU is giving shame-faced support to a pollution market which will reward polluters for trading in greenhouse gas emissions. This is not an effective challenge to global warming. The government needs to urgently legislate mandatory targets directing corporate polluters to clean up their act," said Oliver Woods, co-leader of RAM's candidates group and parliamentary candidate for Auckland Central. "The one-off payments under the new-look ETS will go nowhere near to compensating workers for unfair cost increases heaped on them so that corporations can profit from trading in pollution," noted Grant Brookes, co-leader of RAM's candidates group and parliamentary candidate for Wellington Central. "By backing the ETS, the CTU seems to be acting against the best interests of its own members." "Already some unionists are questioning whether the CTU's stance has more to do with backing Labour in an election year rather than protecting workers and the environment. The best way for the CTU to answer these questions would be to allow all sides of the debate to be presented to their 350,000 members and ask them to reach a collective decision," said Mr Brookes. RAM is calling on the CTU to widely circulate the Maori Party's views on the ETS. "The Maori Party is the only party in Parliament criticising the concept of a pollution market," says Grant Morgan, chair of RAM. "National and Act support a pollution market, merely wanting it to deliver even more corporate welfare to the polluters than the current ETS." "On behalf of RAM, I have requested the CTU leadership to publicise the Maori Party and RAM's criticisms of the ETS within their affiliate unions so more than one side of the story is heard by workers," said Mr Morgan. "I have also requested the CTU to promote a broad debate inside its affiliated unions in a lead-up to a democratic vote by workers about whether or not they should support a pollution market."

Entrenching Te Tiriti o Waitangi

by Tariana Turia Speech to parliament 27 August 2008 On the 8th November 1918, Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, received a vision to gather signatures for a petition, to take to Parliament, to convince Government to make Te Tiriti o Waitangi part of the law of the land. It is a vision still waiting to be realised.

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