Vision of Humanity - NZ ranks 2nd in world; "liberated" Iraq is last

The Vision of Humanity initiative has been launched and it includes a Global Peace Index (GP I ) to highlight the relationship between global peace and sustainability.

The international initiative is based on the view that unless humanity can achieve a world which is peaceful, then the major challenges facing humanity will not be solved. The question the initiative poses is this: 'How will we achieve the global co-operation necessary to reverse global warming, loss of bio-diversity, provide adequate drinking water and a sustainable population without peace?'

The GPI measures a vast array of statistics compiled by analysts at The Economist Intelligence Unit, Sydney University, and a range of others on its international panel. It captures everything from infant mortality to life expectancy, unemployment to adult literacy, primary, secondary and tertiary school enrolment, representation through electoral systems, the participation of women in national politics, a range of measures of violence and crime, expenditures on military and participation in international peace-keeping among many other indicators.

Our country is ranked 2nd of all countries, reflecting policy choices made over the past century or so.

The Labour-Progressive government's priorities over the past eight years - in public education, health, housing investments and in tax relief targeted directly at working families, four week's paid annual leave for workers, the ongoing extensions to the paid parental leave scheme, our participation in U.N.-backed peace-making initiatives all around the world, the progressive raising of the minimum legal wage and our decision not to participate in, or to condone, the evil which is being committed, for example, against the poor people of Iraq - indicates we are reliable protectors of our national cultural heritage of social justice.

The top five peaceful societies in the world, according to this set of measurements, are the social democracies of Norway, New Zealand and Denmark and Eire, and the developmental economic showcase of the world, Japan.

United States ranks 96th, one slot behind Yemen and one ahead of Iran.

Iraq, a combat zone under foreign military control and therefore the responsibility of the occupiers, ranks at the very bottom of the world league (121st place); Sudan, home of genocide in its western Darfur region, ranks in 120th position; Israel, which this week marks 40 years of military control of the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and old East Jerusalem, ranks 119th; Russia is in 118th place and Nigeria is 117th.

http://www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/

Who rallied publically against a carbon tax, Kyoto Protocol?

In the weekend I saw on TV and heard on the radio that the party that over the past eight years has done the most to raise public hostility to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and the same party that contributed most to sinking a carbon tax in New Zealand, namely the National Party, may be a candidate for support on confidence and supply by the Green Party after next year's election, due in a year and a half.

Why didn't the Greens use the media spotlight to direct journalists to looking at National's tax-cut and over-spending policy commitments which are financially and economically unsustainable?

Why didn't the Greens use the occasion to challenge National to support a carbon tax now, forget about talking about potential power-sharing deals in 2008 that everyone knows will never happen?

I don't know the answer to these questions.

But they were in my opinion a catastrophically wasted opportunity for the Left and the type of free PR stunt for National that money can't buy.

There can be no environmental sustainability without social justice and fiscally-sustainable policies from the Government and the Greens could have really put the boot into National's boom and bust policy programme which is a hollow sham.

In my opinion, the Greens didn't get so much as an organic carrot in return for the stick that they handed the National Party to hammer the Labour-Progressive government with.

National would love an excuse for more user pays

A National-led government would be more than happy to have an excuse to adopt a whole range of user-pays charges that will be disproportionately paid by low and middle income families for some services they now get free.

A National-led government will desperately need to raise revenue from all sorts of sources to compensate for the massive on-going loss of revenue to the Crown that would flow from its proposed indiscriminate income tax cuts for the rich.

Having the excuse of "climate change" to justify a whole lot of new user charges is just the kind of cover the environmental movement offers to them.

We are talking here about cover for National's plans to introduce what they call "competition" (read privatisation) of essential public health and education services - including the dismantling of what is in fact a competitive advantage to New Zealand-based companies competing against firms from most other developed countries: the universal ACC scheme.

http://tv3.co.nz/tabid/370/articleID/27871/Default.aspx#video

National offers Greens a Cabinet seat

An interesting interview, that one with National's leader, on TV3.

Did Mr. Key say that National supported the "right" of the "coalition of the willing" (the U.S./U.K./Australia) to invade Iraq? Does National "condone" the loss of live of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in a country invaded and occupied under false pretences?

National has been saying a lot of uncontested nonsense lately.

It has been implying, for example, that the Greens were somehow treated unfairly by Labour after the last three elections, but that the Greens can look forward to one seat in a National-led cabinet.

The only problem with this line is that is doesn't stack up with reality. After the 1999 election, the minority coalition government had 59 seats, but the seven-member Green Party choose to stay in Opposition rather than join the government and make us a majority.

Ahead of the 2002 election, Labour said that the Greens should not make genetically engineered (GE) a "bottom line" issue in post-election negotiations because it was a bottom line for Labour too and therefore Parliament alone should decide the issue.

When the Labour-Progressive government emerged with 53 seats, eight short of a majority, the Greens reiterated that GE was a bottom line and so the government turned to the eight-seat United Future Party for support on confidence.

That didn't stop the Progressive Party from voting against Labour on the issue of ending the moratorium on GE field trials in 2003. Progressive voted in favour of extending the moratorium that had been established by the coalition government in 2001 due to a motion introduced by Phyllida Bunkle. But the moratorium was lifted because a majority in Parliament (e.g. Labour, National, ACT, United) democratically elected to end it.)

That's democracy for you. You put your case, you do your best. But you don't win every argument.

http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=498

As for the 2005 election, Labour+Green+Progressive bloc lost its six-year majority.

I find it tragic for the people the Left parties represent to see this public brinkmanship going on.

As the 1996 election showed all of us, unless the parties of the Left consciously and actively work together to win, then we'll lose.

Maori Party: National's long-term partner?

More significant probably for the future of the country and the evolution of MMP are the sporadic bits of news on National strongly targeting the Maori Party as its first choice of a post-election co-operation agreement.

The 2002 National leader campaigned on a "one standard of law" platform that included disenfranchising the wishes of voters that choose to register in the Maori electorates has obviously been given strong directions from National's current leader to get real.

I get conflicting views from within the Maori Party about how likely those two parties could work together.

For some, it is true, there is room for co-operation. There is a section within the Maori Party that would dismantle central government agencies in favour of greater devolution to locally-based service providers. That could be interpreted to fit in with National's agenda because, as we know, National ultimately wants to privatise social services.

But that is just a superficial reading of the situation because at the end of the day the Maori Party represents some of the poorest sections of society and therefore needs more taxpayer funding of services (regardless of how they are delivered) whereas National sees devolution as a smokescreen to reduce taxpayer funding for those services over time.

While it is good news for the country that National will now stop its horrible campaigns against grassroot providers and organizations like Te Wananga o Aotearoa, as it seeks to woo the Maori Party, the bottom line is that the Maori Party represents the interests of those that vote for it and any Maori Party-National Party post-election deal would very quickly become a divided and unhappy marriage of convenience.

http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?articleId=7276

Palestinian territories mark 40 years of occupation

This week is the 40th anniversary of the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israeli forces.

http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=1

New Zealand's involvement in Palestine goes back to World War I when Commonwealth soldiers pushed the Turkish Imperial forces out of Palestine. The consequences for the Palestinians of this "liberation" continue to this day - stateless Palestinian communities caught in wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Kuwait rarely get news coverage, but their plight flows directly from the fact that the Palestinians neither have their own sovereign state where they can take refugee from these wars, nor are they entitled to take refuge in Israel - which is where their parents or grandparents were born and which is their inalienable national homeland.

If you are tired of our media's biased and worthless coverage of events in that region and are interested in progressive Israeli and Palestinian websites to read, these two are worth a look:

http://www.kibush.co.il/

http://www.almubadara.org/new/english.php

Social Responsibility of Crown Entities

The tragic death of Folole Muliaga after Mercury Energy’s contractor cut off the household power has deservedly had the nation’s attention. It has highlighted the legal responsibility of state-owned enterprises to exercise social responsibility- sadly lacking in this case. I will look at this important issue in the next issue once the response of the Government is clear and more facts are in the public arena.

ENDS

© Scoop Media