Progressive: positive about people and jobs
Fri 2 July
Nurses are worth it
On Tuesday, MPs representing six parties that will be in the next Parliament (ACT missing in action), received a
petition in support of fair pay for nurses and midwives. Progressive believes that it is in our national economic and
social interest to pay nurses what they are worth and our coalition government is progressively reversing the damage of
30 years of under-funding of our health sector, as we are also turning the tide on our inherited education and
infrastructure investment deficits. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3575575=news =general _________________________
Strengthening long-term relationships Part II
Progressive voted in favour of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. The Bill will ensure neutral laws on
relationships so people in long-term relationships are treated the same in law in such diverse areas as health,
commerce, education, tax, and social assistance. Progressive believes that any honest attempt to strengthen long-term,
meaningful relationships deserves support because there is no doubt that society as a whole benefits from individuals
being inside of caring, stable and long-term relationships because that delivers more social stability.
For individuals themselves, stable and caring long-term relationships deliver better heath and more happiness, on
average, than unstable, uncaring and unsatisfying ones. Progressive on Civil Union and Relationships bills:
http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News=article=1016 Hansard of the full debate on relationships (scroll down to link for Relationships):
6_29.htm _________________________
The anti-liberal ACT Party
Progressive last year voted against legalising prostitution: commercial, short-term relationships that are too often
based on highly unequal economic power will undermine long-term healthy relationships. We voted against prostitution
liberalization for the same reasons that we now support the Civil Union and Relationships bills.
It has been interesting to see ACT, an anti-liberal party, again missing in action. On Tuesday, seven out of nine
elected ACT MPs, including 'Liberty Belle' Deborah Coddington, voted against the legislation which recognizes that
adults are sovereign, moral and rational beings and promotes long-term relationships. The same Liberty Belle last year
used her proxy vote all the way from the U.K. to give the vital casting vote Labour needed to enact its prostitution law
change.
Surely only the most anti-liberal and incoherent of reactionaries could vote against strengthening long-term
relationships between sovereign individual adults - while at the same time vote in favour or short-term commercial
relations often based on inequality or the relative economic deprivation of one partner to the other.
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Shudder, if National had led NZ into illegal war
The news from Iraq is hideous. Sensible people shudder at the thought a National-led conservative government could win
the next election, because then our foreign affairs decisions would be made in foreign capitals. National and its
reactionary allies last year were table-thumping, issuing press statements and making grand speeches demanding the
Labour Progressive government surrender sovereignty and follow George Bush, Tony Blair and Australia into an illegal
invasion of Iraq.
Fifteen months after the illegal invasion, the news from Iraq is all about a previously unheard of phenomena in once
highly secular Iraq: Every hour seems to bring another random terrorist attack by reactionary fundamentalist
organizations that are flourishing in the incoherent environment delivered by the Bush-Blair war.
The National Party and its conservative allies need to be challenged on what they said before the U.S.-U.K. invasion of
Iraq last year. Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction (except Israel and Pakistan)? Where is the evidence that the
secular Baathist Dictatorship aided or abetted the religious fundamentalist fanatics of Al Qaeda? What protections exist
for the Kurdish civilian populations of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria as the governments of those countries increase
their repressive policies because they fear Kurdish national aspirations? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news=& storyID=3575273=562588 _________________________
Mon 5 July 7pm Otahuhu Town Hall is a South Auckland Progressive meeting to discuss proposed law changes on passports
and citizenship. All welcome. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news=& storyID=3557607 _________________________
Remember! Tune in Sunday 12 - 1 for the Robson Hour on 531 AM.
This week: looking at foreign policy and trade issues affecting the Pacific and talking to Gerry Brownlee on telling
the judge to "watch out." More on this week's news at www.progressive.org.nz > including higher paid parental leave, the Whanganui River Road, and celebrating public ownership of railtrack.
ENDS