Big Bash: Workers, Unions, Beneficiaries, Tenants, Māori, The Treaty, The Environment & The Climate

I can't think of any new Government that hasn't enjoyed a honeymoon period upon assuming office. As NZ has followed the US model of personality politics, that honeymoon period has been focused on the new Prime Minister. It was with John Key; it most definitely was with Jacinda Ardern; it even extended to the short-serving and doomed Chris Hipkins. Thus, it is remarkable that this present Government and Prime Minister have enjoyed no such honeymoon. Why? Primarily because it has exhibited a serious case of foot in mouth syndrome. And - to continue with the foot theme - it has trodden on too many toes of too many people, proving itself to be the worst dance partner ever.

It had the declared aim of hitting the ground running. And so, it has, at full speed - in reverse. It has a childlike determination to undo as much as possible of the achievements (which weren't many) of the previous Labour government. It scrapped Fair Pay Agreements and reinstated the right of bosses to fire new workers without cause during a 90-day employment trial (reverting to the time-honoured Tory practice of bashing unions and workers and championing unfair pay). It has restored the right of landlords to evict tenants without cause as long as they give 90 days' notice. It has announced a multi-billion-dollar handout to landlords. Add tenants to the ranks of the bashed.

It has declaimed "climate crisis - what climate crisis?" and announced that the road to the glorious future will be just that - roads and lots of them, populated exclusively by petrol and diesel vehicles, with definitely no middle-class welfare for electric cars. Public transport, whether on road, rail or sea, will remain a poor relation. Cyclists and pedestrians can like it or lump it. Oh, and lots of mining and offshore oil drilling.

It has set up an inner team of Ministers within Cabinet to fast track and rubber stamp major development projects and given them the power to override any legal objections. I swear I can hear the posthumous cackle of delight from Piggy Muldoon at his Think Big philosophy being resurrected nearly 50 years later.

The biggie, of course, is the all-out assault on the Treaty of Waitangi and the pandering to the racist rump of the pakeha population that is incensed by a perceived "Māorification" of New Zealand ("don't call it Aotearoa, there's no such country"). This spectacularly retrograde policy has achieved the seemingly impossible feat of uniting all the various factions of Māoridom, which has come out all guns blazing, and ready to fight to defend the gains that have been made in achieving racial justice in this country. No justice, no peace, as the slogan goes. As for CAFCA - we changed the New Zealand in our title to Aotearoa in the 1980s, and 40 years ago is where we thought this sort of argument belonged.

The Government has been so busy pissing off Māori that it took several months to get to the Tories' hardy perennial of beneficiary bashing. This really is a very old favourite. My Dear Old Dad, who voted National for decades before going back to Labour (where he had started) told me, just before he died, aged 86, in the 2005 election year, that he wouldn't have voted for National if he'd lived because "I've heard beneficiary bashing all my life". This is classic diversionary tactics - look over there at those dole bludgers. Definitely don't look at the real bludgers, the transnational corporations and domestic big businesses that dodge huge sums in tax.

Tax Cuts

Apart from "we're not Labour", National only had one actual policy of its own in the 2023 election campaign - tax cuts! They always leave off the end of that slogan - for the rich! Since time immemorial, Tory bullshit artists have attempted to convince people that we'll all have a better and brighter future, without mentioning the contradictory fact that the Government will have less money to pay for it.

National thought they'd cracked it in 2023 - they'd pay for it by partly revoking Labour's foreign house buyer ban and taxing the foreign purchasers of the most expensive houses. But that was vetoed by Winston Peters, a reactionary nationalist of the Muldoon ilk, as part of his terms for joining the Coalition government. So, National's One Big Idea was buggered up and this pissed off the real estate industry, usually a reliable cheerleader for the Tories.

Smoko!

Where was the money going to come from to pay for these tax cuts (for the rich!)? Which brings me to the most fascinating - not to mention cold bloodedly horrifying - of the Government's policies thus far, namely the decision to stop in its tracks the further progress of NZ's world-leading smoke free law. Why? Because the Government needs the money it gathers as tax from tobacco sales.

This was stated quite openly (along with some nonsense about the proposed law impeding the freedom of smokers in remote areas to be able to buy tobacco once the number of outlets had been reduced nationally). There is a cynical calculation in all of this. Won't smokers cost the State money in hospital and healthcare bills? Yes, but it's statistically proven that smokers die younger than non-smokers, thus saving the State money, both in the health system and in old age pensions.

This was the policy that really united the country in anger. There had been no mention of it in the election campaign and it flies in the face of decades of consensus right across the political spectrum that smoking is a major preventable cause of death and a social evil that needs to be eliminated. In my opinion, the smoke free campaign was the most extensive, most long running and most successful campaign in my lifetime.

NZ was well on the way with that process (this is not the place to discuss the ghastly mistake that was made in allowing vaping to get away as a brand-new means of addicting a whole new generation to nicotine). After all, it was the 2008-17 National government that had declared the aim of making NZ smoke free by 2025.

The nationwide uproar was only further inflamed by the procession of revelations about the links between the Government and Big Tobacco. This is the Government with the most intimate ties with tobacco companies. Not only has it pissed off Māori, unions, workers, tenants, beneficiaries, environmentalists and everyone concerned about climate change, it has also pissed off the entire medical profession.

I bet there are plenty of Remuera and Fendalton oncologists who voted National but swallowed their stethoscopes and bow ties when they learned of this policy. Hilariously, the Minister of Health is a doctor (an actual general practitioner). Cartoonists in major media outlets that support National have had a field day with a blizzard of cartoons savaging the Government about this. It is such a retrogressive step that it attracted international media coverage.

To put it into context, it's important to remember just how far we've come as a country. When I was a kid, everyone smoked, including me (it didn't attract girls, so I gave it up). Both my parents smoked - my father started when tobacco was part of his rations in the Army during WW2 (he permanently quit decades later). Mum was a chain smoker who died of cancer, aged 60, thus proving the point about saving the State money in health system and old age pension costs. Our family doctor would be smoking when I went to see him!

Cigarette advertising was everywhere, as was tobacco company sponsorship of sports and events. I worked for years in jobs where smoko really was smoko, and stopwork meetings consisted of a cloud of smoke generated by hundreds of men smoking. You could smoke pretty much anywhere in those days. That's all gone now, and good riddance, too.

It's a tragedy that this bunch of clowns, headed by the Three Stooges, wants to take its foot off the neck of Big Tobacco, in order to continue raking in taxes from selling something that is the preventable cause of death of thousands of New Zealanders every year, in order to "give ordinary Kiwis some of their own money back". To do what? Build their own hospitals?

Rubberstamping Foreign Takeover

Then there is the policy that is of direct concern to CAFCA, one which has had very little media or public attention, namely changes to the foreign investment regime. Labour did make some improvements to it, all in its first term (2017-20). I refer you to my article "Let's Get Moving: Labour Must Govern For The Many, Not The Few", subsection "Changes To Foreign Investment Regime" (Watchdog 155, December 2020).

It is not coincidental that the Minister in charge of the Overseas Investment Office in that first term was not a Labour MP but a Green, Eugenie Sage. She remains the only Minister (and she was outside Cabinet) ever to have asked to meet CAFCA and solicited our opinion on the overseas investment law. The Greens weren't allowed anywhere near foreign investment policy in Labour's second term and Labour never raised the subject again.

You can read my write up of the October 2023 Overseas Investment Office Decisions here. That was the month of the election, the last month of the Labour government. There were 27 Decisions, an extremely high number, and 12 of them were Ministerial Decisions (specifically, the Minister for Land Information and the Associate Minister of Finance), also a very high number.

This is likely to become non-existent with the change of Government. Act intends to revert to the good old days, vis a vis the foreign investment regime. It got this in its Coalition Agreement with National: "Amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to limit ministerial decision making to national security concerns and make such decision making more-timely". Currently two Ministers or Associate Ministers sign off on Decisions but this will put virtually all OIO Decisions back into the hands of the bureaucrats again. More-timely, eh. Hand me that rubber stamp.

I was interviewed for an article on Newsroom (26/1/24, Andrew Bevin) "Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa Organiser Murray Horton said ministers needed to be actively involved in decision making relating to deals that could affect employment, the environment and specific communities. 'Who is the Overseas Investment Office accountable to? Whereas ministers, theoretically, are accountable to you and me as members of the public, who elect them and pay their salaries'".

"Horton's organisation takes a strong stance against what it sees as the eroding of independence of countries by large-scale investors and believes the Overseas Investment Office is 'pretty laissez-faire' and has failed on a decision-making front on multiple occasions. 'The coalition agreement between Act and National represents a giant step backward'. Horton said the National-Act-New Zealand First definition of national security would likely be very different from his definition".

For the record, these are the Ministers with responsibility for decisions under the Overseas Investment Act: National interest, national security and public order (Nicola Willis); significant business interests (David Seymour, but all delegated to the OIO); sensitive land (David Seymour and Chris Penk); and fishing quota (David Seymour and Shane Jones).

Cuddling Up To Uncle Sam

On foreign policy, defence and intelligence, Labour was abysmal. Ardern talked about having a "proudly independent foreign policy" but nothing could be further from the truth. One journalist approvingly described her as the most pro-US Prime Minister since Piggy Muldoon in the 1970s and 80s. Isn't that something to be proud of! Labour took NZ right back into the orbit of the American Empire, while trying to balance that against the reality of China being NZ's biggest trading partner (the 2008-17 National government tried to have 50 cents each way - US for defence, China for trade).

NZ sucked up to NATO, with Ardern, in 2022, being the first NZ PM ever invited to speak at its Leaders' Summit (Hipkins did likewise at the 2023 Summit). Under Labour, NZ got involved in the Ukraine War. The military and spies had no greater champion and benefactor than Andrew Little, who was Minister in charge of both at various times during the second term (now their Minister is Judith Collins).

Things have only gone from bad to worse with the change in Government. Once again, Winston Peters (dead but he won't lie down) is Deputy Prime Minister (for the first 18 months of this term) and, more significantly, Minister of Foreign Affairs. There has been one consistent theme throughout his nearly half a century as a politician (he first entered Parliament, under the old electoral system, as a Muldoon National Party MP in the late 70s) - unwavering service to the US/NZ alliance.

I have previously written about his role in the US CIA's failed attempt to get rid of NZ's 1980s' Labour government which brought in the country's signature nuclear-free law (which remains in effect today). You can read that in Watchdog 149 (December 2018; "Lest We Forget: The Māori Loans Affair").

Peters has devoted his decades in Parliament, both in and out of Government, to championing the US alliance. Upon being appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2017 by Ardern, he said that he had devoted his previous stint at Foreign Affairs (2005-08, under Labour) to rebuilding NZ's relationship with the US. TV news illustrated this with a clip of him shaking hands with the then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Here's a quote from a 2005 US Embassy cable (one of those leaked by Wikileaks): "We believe that Peters is genuinely interested in improving bilateral relations with the United States, and during his introductory meeting with Ambassador McCormick last week he made clear this was a priority. (FYI: Peters purposely made sure that Ambassador McCormick was the first Ambassador he met with as Foreign Minister)".

Peters Has Got Straight Back To Work For US Empire

"Peters has wasted no time in refreshing New Zealand's foreign policy direction, away from so-called independent foreign policy and firmly into the orbit of the United States, Australia and the UK. In a speech to foreign diplomats in Wellington last night, he minimised the notion that New Zealand had an independent foreign policy by acknowledging that every country had one".

"On security, he pledged to 'reinvigorate' New Zealand's engagement with the United States, Five Eyes 'and other key security partners in the region and beyond'" (New Zealand Herald, 12/12/23, Audrey Young)

In January 2024, Peters, Collins and Luxon signed New Zealand up to the motley crew of predominantly Western countries fighting the Houthis in Yemen to try and stop them attacking international shipping in the Red Sea (which is their contribution to the fight against the Israeli genocide in Gaza). New Zealand has contributed a handful (six, to be precise) of military personnel to that coalition, to serve as target spotters.

So, New Zealand is now directly involved in an expanding (and thus far unsuccessful) war that sees US and UK bombs and missiles being used to attack targets in Yemen. The Government insists this has got nothing to do with the war in Gaza (about which it has done nothing and said very little). Of course not, it's purely coincidental. We're just being a good partner, putting our "values" into action.

Joining the Red Sea gunboat diplomacy armada is all about NZ's fixation on keeping the global sea lanes open for trade. And currying favour with the US on trade politics is consistent with NZ's long-standing ambition to secure a free trade agreement with the US, which remains a shimmering mirage. NZ's new Government has barely issued one syllable of condemnation about Israel's genocide in Gaza, but waxes indignant at a threat to shipping in the Red Sea. Its' priorities are nakedly obvious. And it has made clear whose side it is on in the Gaza War by declaring the entirety of Hamas (military and political wings) to be a "terrorist organisation".

"What is clear is that New Zealand and the US are drawing closer. In Sydney (in December 2023) Prime Minister Christopher Luxon signalled the Government was exploring Pillar Two of AUKUS - a security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia, the UK, and the US. This focuses on technology and was championed by (US Secretary of State) Blinken in a visit to Wellington in 2023" (New Zealand Herald, 6/1/24, Fran O'Sullivan)

It is worth noting that neither defence policy, nor foreign policy, nor intelligence alliances, were ever mentioned in the 2023 election campaign, which was fought on strictly domestic economic issues. National did not even release a defence policy for the campaign. But now we have Peters swearing allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, and PM Luxon hinting at NZ getting involved with AUKUS further down the track. I've written about AUKUS before, in Watchdog 163 ("AUKUS: A Major Lurch Towards War With China") so I refer you to that.

Opposition To AUKUS Continues To Grow, Right Across Spectrum

Not only from the usual suspects, but also from the most unlikely of people. Don Brash was the Leader of the National Party when it was in Opposition, from 2003-06, and then he was the Leader of Act in 2011. So, he was the Leader of two of the three parties that comprise the current Government. In December 2023 he wrote an opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald titled "Why On Earth Would We Join AUKUS In Any Form?"

This is the same Don Brash who, as Leader of the Opposition, had said that if he won the 2005 election, the nuclear-free policy would be "gone by lunchtime". This shows the range of people opposed to any expansion of NZ's involvement with the US Empire and indicates that Winston Peters, Christopher Luxon, and David Seymour, et al, will have a fight on their hands. The New Zealand people have a long and noble history of opposition to US imperialism.

Rightward Ho!

So now we have a Government described as the most Rightwing since the 1990s (and weren't they the good old days). But really, what's new? Tory bastards have always made a habit of grinding the faces of the poor, and this lot are setting about their unholy mission with renewed vigour. The only two unusual ingredients are the full-on racist assault on Māori and the Treaty; and the suggestion that we can all alleviate our suffering by taking up smoking, helping the Government's coffers in the process. Tory governments always bring people out fighting, and this one has set a cracking pace in stirring people up, all within its' first few months. Bring it on.

Watchdog - 165 April 2024