Robson-On-Politics - 21 February 2007

Apology to Hon. Peter Dunne, United Leader

In my November 1 newsletter I contrasted United leader Peter Dunne's strong rhetoric in favour of the interests of families against his party's vote against family-friendly policies like my Four Weeks' Annual Leave Bill in 2003 and his own vote against my 2005/'06 Bill to raise the alcohol purchasing age to 20.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2464

I would like to make an unqualified apology to Hon Peter Dunne that the wording of the original version of that November 1 newsletter to members and friends might have been misinterpreted by some to suggest that Robson-on-politics was in anyway suggesting that Mr Dunne was not an honourable person.

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0702/S00136.htm

Progressive Maori Party Bill to make tobacco illegal

Talking about the campaign to promote and protect the health of families, particularly some of the most vulnerable families in the country, we should all keep an eye out on how we can support Hone Harawira, the MP for Te Tai Tokerau, who last year launched a campaign to stamp out the manufacture and sale of tobacco in Aotearoa. – TOA - Tobacco Out Of Aotearoa.

Its about the most useful single measure that we could take as a society to assist to significantly improve the health of working families, perhaps second only to raising the alcohol purchasing age to 20.

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0702/S00265.htm

Progressive Green Party Bill to better protect children

I think it would be fair to say that a majority of Executive Members of the Progressive Party that met in Wellington over the weekend would support a straight repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act. But Parliamentary politics is all about building majorities around law changes and so the Progressive Party hopes that Sue Bradford's important step in the right direction gets the 61 votes majority in needs in all stages of voting to become the law of this land.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2584

UNICEF report on child well-being a reminder of why we need a 4th term

A UNICEF report on child wellbeing, based on data relating to 2000-2003 and released last week, is a real reminder of the progress we have made since 1999 to reduce child poverty in New Zealand but also a reminder of how much more needs to be done.

The centre-left parties won an absolute majority in Parliament in the 1999 and 2002 elections, but we lost that majority in the 2005 election after which the Labour-Progressive government has been dependent on the parliamentary support of two opportunistic parties called NZ First and United Future.

Opinion polls have been remarkably stable in terms of the relative support for the Left as compared with the Right over the past decade. Certainly, opinion polls so far in 2007 point to a 4th term Labour-led government. The only interesting question is whether the Left can re-gain the majority we lost in Parliament in 2005 and so resume the more progressive policy programme that was being implemented before that majority was lost.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2581

Wolfgang Rosenberg - great New Zealander, humanitarian and socialist

The loss of Wolfgang Rosenberg this week is an enormous one.

During the late 1980s when the Labour Government of Geoffrey Palmer and Helen Clark was selling key assets like Telecom, Air NZ, our banks and our forests at bargain-basement prices to any offshore buyer, when unemployment and poverty were rising, when income taxes for the wealthiest were being cut while the poor got higher taxes on their food, Wolgang was one of the few economists around that actually talked about the social and economic costs of that extreme right-wing Labour agenda and why we needed a pro-jobs developmental agenda instead.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2583

The media circus and the harm it does to democratic participation

You know, it wouldn't take much in this country before any intelligent discussion on any important issue is stiffled the way all thought and discussion was killed at the height of the 1980s madness.

Just take the media circus around Michael Cullen's comments on potential steps that could be taken by us, as a society, to take a bit of pressure off exporters labouring under the extraordinarily high real interest rates/exchange rate this past couple of years.

The circus act represented a lost opportunity for a rational discussion on a serious issue.

New Zealand can't run massive deficits in its merchandise trade, services trade and its investment income balances with the rest of the world year after year after year, forever, with no implications.

There are implications: We pay a price, both economically (the cost of capital for our firms is higher which makes them less competitive internationally) and in terms of loss of sovereignty over time. We sell assets, as a nation, mainly in land and natural resources, to part-fund our high borrowing culture.

There are vitally important national issues which progressives will have to offer solutions to because poll-driven reactionaries will always run for cover at the first scent of the slightlest bit of negative media coverage of an idea - no matter how important and no matter that it is coming from by perhaps the most intelligent member of the Labour front-bench, the Minister of Finance.

It is important to stress that I don't think the media organizations kill democracy in our country out of any conspiracy or anything. It is just that they are utterly driven by ratings and readership surveys and apparently these surveys tell them that the public want sensationalist distortion and shock horror scandal ahead of real discussion and insight. If you want to read more about the issues Dr Cullen was raising, however, see the RBNZ website:

www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/workshops/12jun06/2837468.html

Few in Iraq would say they are better off today after illegal U.S.-U.K. invasion, occupation

The Australian Fairfax company that owns most of our daily newspapers other than in Auckland (where the monopoly paper is owned by another foreign company) foregets sometimes that this isn't Australia and editorials saying how wonderful the U.S./Australian invasion and occupation of Iraq are don't remotely ring true to most Kiwis' ears.

Progressives really do have a responsibility to write to the editor of the paper when they write something that really is even more sickening than usual in terms of their tedious, right-wing propaganda drive justifying mass murder and killing in other peoples' lands.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2578

Egypt cuts import taxes on Kiwi farm exports - Mr Bush, you listening?

Fonterra has welcomed Egypt’s decision to reduce the tariff rates it places on dairy imports into that country. Egypt is a $140 million market for New Zealand dairy products and the reduction in tariffs will mean most of these exports will now enter that country at a tariff rate of between 0 to 2 percent.

Can you imagine how great it would be for our farmers if the United States of America and the European Union did likewise - and removed their evil apartheid trade barriers against those things that we are most competitive at producing and exporting? Sadly, there is no sign the U.S. will ever support free and fair global trading rules.

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0702/S00290.htm

ENDS

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