Wealth distribution theory according to John Key.

How John Key sees the world the justification for tax cuts for the uber wealthy.

Despite all evidence to the contrary John Key, Bill English and their asset stripping mates persist in believing the myth of the golden deluge or trickle down economics to justify increasing taxes on the workers while cutting tax for the uber wealthy money speculators.

 An even more graphic demonstration of the social structure that corporate feudalism has imposed on our society. As the countries assets are steadily hocked off to the corporate raiders and asset strippers the concentration of the country's wealth and benefits in the hands of the top.0001% of the population will be even more pronounced.

Hekia Parata reacts to new studies showing that her policies have failed national & international standards.

The National Party caucus react rationally to research that reveals Education policy failures against International and National Standards.

With much support from Key Gerry takes the privatisation of assets literally, displays his assets ready for a quick sale..

Gerry Brownlee takes asset sales literally.

Two Graphs that explain a lot - why PinoKeyo is being "supported" by Double Dipton in public as the country gets flogged off.

The debt John, The gambling banker, has run up since coming to power according to the Reserve Bank. A graphic demonstration of how bad  economic managers he and his deputy Double Dipton English are. This probably explains why Key is so keen to put NZ's assets up for fire sale bargain basement prices in the face of public opposition.

The Reserve Bank demonstrates Key's incompetence as a manager of the economy.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll results tracking the likelihood of a National win in the 2014 election steadily down ward.

No wonder PinoKeyo is looking to divine intervention from a more conservative party. Expect the closet warfare within the National-Act caucus to start spilling blood.

These Need No explanation.-- Tell PinoKeyo that his policies are wrong.

These need no explanation - the economics of selling the State assets (especially those developed for the public good) in any form of Private ownership is questionable and, as similar policy decisions have proven to lead to asset stripping and exploitation of the country by the corporate "investors," forced governments in Europe to reassess the neo-liberal, Thatcherite policies. 
New Zealand has already seen the negative results of earlier asset sales which ended in the Government having to repurchase. Now, driven by ideology rather than economic commonsense, the Key-Joyce-English government are determined to rile the public and continue putting the country on the auction block.
The referendum is the chance to tell the National-Act government to stop asset stripping the country.

Loss of Humour- another victim of privatisation policies

Humourless and Passionless in the quest for leadership.

Judith Collins takes aim at the individual's sense of humour as she seeks to privatise all possible personal assets.

The Bellman has been predicting that Judith Collins would reveal her Thatcherite tendencies at some point as the internal feuding for the leadership of the National Party heats up and so it is with her latest demonstration of the problems that the sale of personal and State assets is causing individuals in the National-ACT party.

The Bellman has assured us that Judith Collins was one of the first to embrace the privatisation of personal assets to demonstrate her support for the sale of all of the State assets before the 2014 election.

Apparently Judith Collins sold her sense of humour to Gerry Brownlee in a deal that required Ms Collins to stump up a deal sweetener of a contribution to Gerry's election campaign Vote catching bench plaques. Unfortunately for both Judith and Gerry someone got wind of this inspired strategy and started posting their own versions thus upsetting the Brownlee quest to become the supreme ruler of Christchurch.


When Collins learnt that David Cunliffe had used a series of puns in a humourous blog comment Collins' sale of her sense of humour left her with only one recourse- a vocal demonstration of her belief that she is the only person able and allowed to comment on issues and that anyone who dares hold that belief up to ridicule must be abused and accused of "sexism" or "personality assassination."

Humourless and passionless Judith Collins took the hook and awaits being reeled in.

At the risk of being accused of carping on, but by hoki one cannot help it, one must conclude that her reaction to the Cunliffe fishing puns has revealed two things: (1) that she is quick to snap at a baited hook and will be easily reeled in by a cunning fisherman like Cunliffe and (2) that if she does succeeed in pushing Key and his favoured successor, Joyce, out of the way the New Zealand voters will be subject to a disciplinarian who will remove all sense of fun from the NZ psyche.

Economic Fallacies of the Second Great Depression (Social Europe Journal) that under pin the present Government's policies

Four Fallacies Of The Second Great Depression

21/11/2013 by Robert Skidelsky 1 Comment

Robert Skidelsky

The period since 2008 has produced a plentiful crop of recycled economic fallacies, mostly falling from the lips of political leaders. Here are my four favorites.

The Swabian Housewife. (in NZ read "Waitakere Man" )“One should simply have asked the Swabian housewife,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. “She would have told us that you cannot live beyond your means.”

This sensible-sounding logic currently underpins austerity. The problem is that it ignores the effect of the housewife’s thrift on total demand. If all households curbed their expenditures, total consumption would fall, and so, too, would demand for labor. If the housewife’s husband loses his job, the household will be worse off than before.

The general case of this fallacy is the “fallacy of composition”: what makes sense for each household or company individually does not necessarily add up to the good of the whole. The particular case that John Maynard Keynes identified was the “paradox of thrift”: if everyone tries to save more in bad times, aggregate demand will fall, lowering total savings, because of the decrease in consumption and economic growth.

If the government tries to cut its deficit, households and firms will have to tighten their purse strings, resulting in less total spending. As a result, however much the government cuts its spending, its deficit will barely shrink. And if all countries pursue austerity simultaneously, lower demand for each country’s goods will lead to lower domestic and foreign consumption, leaving all worse off.

The government cannot spend money it does not have. This fallacy – often repeated by British Prime Minister David Cameron – treats governments as if they faced the same budget constraints as households or companies. (in NZ this is the favourite mantra of both Key (the gambler) and English (the "finance" minister) But governments are not like households or companies. They can always get the money they need by issuing bonds.

But won’t an increasingly indebted government have to pay ever-higher interest rates, so that debt-service costs eventually consume its entire revenue? The answer is no: the central bank can print enough extra money to hold down the cost of government debt. This is what so-called quantitative easing does. With near-zero interest rates, most Western governments cannot afford not to borrow.

This argument does not hold for a government without its own central bank, in which case it faces exactly the same budget constraint as the oft-cited Swabian housewife. That is why some eurozone member states got into so much trouble until the European Central Bank rescued them.

The national debt is deferred taxation. According to this oft-repeated fallacy, governments can raise money by issuing bonds, but, because bonds are loans, they will eventually have to be repaid, which can be done only by raising taxes. And, because taxpayers expect this, they will save now to pay their future tax bills. The more the government borrows to pay for its spending today, the more the public saves to pay future taxes, canceling out any stimulatory effect of the extra borrowing.

The problem with this argument is that governments are rarely faced with having to “pay off” their debts. They might choose to do so, but mostly they just roll them over by issuing new bonds. The longer the bonds’ maturities, the less frequently governments have to come to the market for new loans.

More important, when there are idle resources (for example, when unemployment is much higher than normal), the spending that results from the government’s borrowing brings these resources into use. The increased government revenue that this generates (plus the decreased spending on the unemployed) pays for the extra borrowing without having to raise taxes.

The national debt is a burden on future generations. This fallacy is repeated so often that it has entered the collective unconscious. The argument is that if the current generation spends more than it earns, the next generation will be forced to earn more than it spends to pay for it. (this is the favourite mantra of the disappearing ACT party and, on occassions, Key (the money dealer) )

But this ignores the fact that holders of the very same debt will be among the supposedly burdened future generations. Suppose my children have to pay off the debt to you that I incurred. They will be worse off. But you will be better off. This may be bad for the distribution of wealth and income, because it will enrich the creditor at the expense of the debtor, but there will be no net burden on future generations.

The principle is exactly the same when the holders of the national debt are foreigners (as with Greece), though the political opposition to repayment will be much greater.

Economics is luxuriant with fallacies, because it is not a natural science like physics or chemistry. Propositions in economics are rarely absolutely true or false. What is true in some circumstances may be false in others. Above all, the truth of many propositions depends on people’s expectations.

Consider the belief that the more the government borrows, the higher the future tax burden will be. If people act on this belief by saving every extra pound, dollar, or euro that the government puts in their pockets, the extra government spending will have no effect on economic activity, regardless of how many resources are idle. The government must then raise taxes – and the fallacy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So how are we to distinguish between true and false propositions in economics? Perhaps the dividing line should be drawn between propositions that hold only if people expect them to be true and those that are true irrespective of beliefs. The statement, “If we all saved more in a slump, we would all be better off,” is absolutely false. We would all be worse off. But the statement, “The more the government borrows, the more it has to pay for its borrowing,” is sometimes true and sometimes false.

Or perhaps the dividing line should be between propositions that depend on reasonable behavioral assumptions and those that depend on ludicrous ones. If people saved every extra penny of borrowed money that the government spent, the spending would have no stimulating effect. True. But such people exist only in economists’ models.

© Project Syndicate

This cartoon sums up the policy directions of the Key owned National-Act government.

This attitude is the one we have come to expect from John Key... a total lack of moral responsibility in the selfish quest for aggrandisment.

John Key's cold hearted refusal to recognise the responsibility of the State to compensate the families who lost loved ones in the Pike River disaster and  the recent appearance of the Jammy-Lea Ross / Ports of Auckland / Slater-Lusk framed anti-worker, anti-Union bill and the up-coming Simian Bridges created Employment law amendments are a reflection of the attitudes expressed by this pointed cartoon.

Those that drive companies into the ground and then demand and receive a taxpayer funded bail out are those"entitled" to a golden deluge rewarding them for their incompetence while those that work and positively contribute to the economy are to be squeezed and vilified for daring to claim and fight for protection and their rights.

The attitude of Key to the families of Pike River reflects the beliefs of the complaining "Banker" in this cartoon.

"Democracy is such a waste of time and money." John Key

This is typical of John (Pinokeyo) Key.

The latest demonstration of Key's belief that democracy is a waste of time, a waste of money and should be ignored in the interests of asset stripping New Zealand is shown by his cynical decision to sell off Air New Zealand and, no doubt have Genesis Energy on the block, before the Citizens Initiated Referendum opposing the Sale of New Zealand's Assets to foreign asset strippers.

"What? Me worry about democracy? Never, as long as I can flog off the State Assets and even reward the asset strippers with a cheque to help them buy I'm happy." John Key.

And this lot don't even sing in tune except when it comes to pillaging the State.

Nats resurrect the ghosts of 1932 and 1951 as Jami-Lee's Bill is defeated.

Massey's Cossacks used to attack strking workers in 1913... resurrected by Botany MP, Jami-Lee Ross.

The close won defeat of the Ports of Auckland inspired anti-worker bill, sponsored by the often unseen Botany MP, Jami-Lee Ross, should be seen as a brief flicker of sanity in a Parliament that has been held in a time warp that alternates between the mid nineteenth century and the McCarthyite madness of the 1950s ever since the election of the Key-Joyce dominated National government. (if, as the Bellman predicts, the Collins faction gains ascendency watch out for the National Party to regress further into hard-line conservatism).

Jami-Lee’s bill was a combination of Nineteenth century draconian worker exploitation and anti-Union rhetoric of the McCarthyite “50s and the Muldoon “80s which, in a more rational and realistic parliament, been laughed out of the debating chamber as well as being heartedly ridiculed by critical media analysis with Jami-Lee being publicly pilloried for being the privileged chump he so capably parades around the House.

The bill capably demonstrated that Jami-Lee is no more that a shallow, inexperienced, privileged and easily manipulated MP who is at the beck and call of those with anti-worker political and management agendas and who should not have been rewarded with the “dignity” of having his bill treated as a serious and thoughtfully drafted piece of legislation.

Empty rhetoric from the Nats to disguise their true agenda

Mind you the level of thoughtful analysis of the ramifications of the Bill coming from the National-Act MPs during the debate was hardly inspiring and well thought out. In 99% of the cases the rhetoric was cliché filled, emotively empty and sounded as though we were being given a re-run of 1932 and 1951 National Party Hansard records.

The National Business Review reported that Jami-Lee had been advised on the wording and purpose of his bill by the management of the Ports of Auckland whose anti-employment contract and anti-worker agendas demanded the strike breaking provisions written into the bill. Rumour also had it that the bill had been further worked over by the young Nats who reef fish around the Slater-Lusk blog-site group. Given that the NBR report and the rumoured involvement of the Slater-Lusk group is true then one must seriously question the ability of Jami-Lee to be seen as an MP who genuinely has the needs of concerns of his constituents at heart. Instead one must see him as being the easily manipulated tool of those whose self interests over-ride the common good.

Unfortunately for NZ workers the National-Act government have an equally obnoxious piece of anti-worker, anti-union legislation waiting in the wings- the Simon Bridges (he of the “If I shout and bluster loud enough I’m telling the truth” persuasion) sponsored “Employment Relations Amendment Bill” which is designed to strip workers of fundamental work place rights.   On the other hand, here is what the Labour MPs have been saying about the Ross-Bridges bills.

The Bridges’ Bill probably explains why the National-Act caucus voted en-bloc for the Jami-Lee bill as, if they did vote it down, it would have made Simon Bridges look powerless and ineffective and expose the flaws in his Employment Relations Amendment Bill.

Performance Pay- a myth that has had its day

The article by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian provides solid reasons why the mythical efficacy of performance based pay should be pushed right off the table as being, like other neo-liberal ecomonic policies, a fallacy based on faith rather than empirical evidence.

National internal feuds increase- the rats desert.

The list of deserting rats grows as the feuding between Very dry Joyce and Tinder dry Collins increases in intensity within the National Caucus closet.
While the cartoonist chooses to show PinoKeyo as orchestrating the leaving, like the Captain of the Concordia, the desertion is a result of the constant sniping was between Collins and Joyce within the caucus forcing those who cannot take the increasing heat to pack their bags and head for bluer pastures in which to trough. In the meantime Key attempts to strut the world stage - a poor fool seeking his five minutes on the stage before disappearing into the cast list of history.

And the Ship sails on- rudderless, captainless and mapless

The only policy that Key has remained consistent on... corporate cronyism.

The Bellman has always said that the Key (Joyce) and English management of the NZ economy was  captaincy by the clueless armed only with the mantra: "If I say it twice it should be right and if said thrice it is the truth"... even if Mercator had forgotten to include the map.
Brain Gaynor's piece in the NZ Herald (!!) is a great indication of how directless and clueless the Key government is when it comes to managing the economy or, for that matter, selling off the State assets to cover the huge holes their incompetence has left in NZ's economic and social structure.

The Wage Slave Legislation.. The world according to Simian Bridges and Jammy-Lea Ross

The new world envisaged by Simian Bridges and Jammy-Lea Ross and endorsed by Cameron Brewer

This bill was defeated 60-60 despite the florid, over blown McCarthyite rhetoric coming from those who framed and supported the bill drawn up with the aid of the Ports of Auckland.

While the Share Market booms the Recession continues...a warning to NZ from the USA. (Social Journal-Europe)

Why Washington Is Cutting Safety Nets

05/11/2013 by Robert Reich 1 Comment

Robert Reich

… when most Americans are still in the Great Recession? So how to explain this paradox?
As of November 1 more than 47 million Americans have lost some or all of their food stamp benefits. House Republicans are pushing for further cuts. If the sequester isn’t stopped everything else poor and working-class Americans depend on will be further squeezed.
We’re not talking about a small sliver of America here. Half of all children get food stamps at some point during their childhood. Half of all adults get them sometime between ages 18 and 65. Many employers – including the nation’s largest, Walmart – now pay so little that food stamps are necessary in order to keep food on the family table, and other forms of assistance are required to keep a roof overhead.
The larger reality is that most Americans are still living in the Great Recession. Median household income continues to drop. In last week’s Washington Post-ABC poll, 75 percent rated the state of the economy as “negative” or “poor.”
So why is Washington whacking safety nets and services that a large portion of Americans need, when we still very much need them?
It’s easy to blame Republicans and the rightwing billionaires that bankroll them, and their unceasing demonization of “big government” as well as deficits. But Democrats in Washington bear some of the responsibility. In last year’s fiscal cliff debate neither party pushed to extend the payroll tax holiday or find other ways to help the working middle class and poor.
Here’s a clue: A new survey of families in the top 10 percent of net worth (done by the American Affluence Research Center) shows they’re feeling better than they’ve felt since 2007, before the Great Recession.
It’s not just that the top 10 percent have jobs and their wages are rising. The top 10 percent also owns 80 percent of the stock market. And the stock market is up a whopping 24 percent this year.
The stock market is up even though most Americans are down for two big reasons.
First, businesses are busily handing their cash back to their shareholders – buying back their stock and thereby boosting share prices – rather than using the cash to expand and hire. It makes no sense to expand and hire when most Americans don’t have the money to buy.
The S&P 500 “Buyback Index,” which measures the 100 stocks with the highest buyback ratios, has surged 40 percent this year, compared with a 24% rally for the S&P 500.
IBM has just approved another $15 billion for share buybacks on top of about $5.6 billion it set aside previously, thereby boosting its share prices even though business is sluggish. In April, Apple announced a $50 billion increase in buybacks plus a 15% rise in dividends, but even this wasn’t enough for multi-billionaire Carl Icahn, who’s now demanding that Apple use more of its $170 billion cash stash to buy back its stock and make Ichan even richer.
Big corporations can also borrow at rock-bottom rates these days in order to buy back even more of their stock — courtesy of the Fed’s $85 billion a month bond-buying program. (Ichan also wants Apple to borrow $150 billion at 3 percent interest, in order to buy back more stock and further enrich himself.)
The second big reason why shares are up while most Americans are down is corporations continue to find new ways to boost profits and share prices by cutting their labor costs – substituting software for people, cutting wages and benefits, and piling more responsibilities on each of the employees that remain.
Neither of these two strategies – buying back stock and paring payrolls – can be sustained over the long run (so you have every right to worry about another Wall Street bubble). They don’t improve a company’s products or customer service.
But in an era of sluggish sales – when the vast American middle class lacks the purchasing power to keep the economy going – these two strategies at least keep shareholders happy. And that means they keep the top 10 percent happy.
Congress, meanwhile, doesn’t know much about the bottom 90 percent. The top 10 percent provide almost all campaign contributions and funding of “independent” ads.
Moreover, just about all members of Congress are drawn from the same top 10 percent – as are almost all their friends and associates, and even the media who report on them.
Get it? The bottom 90 percent of Americans  — most of whom are still suffering from the Great Recession, most of whom have been on a downward escalator for decades — have disappeared from official Washington.

Musings on the 2013 Labour Conference

 The Line in the Sand

As noted earlier, this conference should be seen as “The Line in the Sand” conference rather than, as has been painted by the opinionistas, an inward looking navel gaze by a Party more interested in itself than in politics and governance.
Cunliffe’s speech was designed to clearly articulate the points of difference between Labour and the neo-liberal National-ACT party while the Party, as a whole, determined that the principles on which these differences are based are clearly articulated in the Party’s policy framework.

What has escaped the opinionistas is that the Policy Framework is the document against which all manifesto and policy directions must be referenced. It is designed to limit and prevent policy inconsistencies developing. This means that, unlike PinoKeyo, who makes up “facts and figures” and invents policy on the hoof when ever he is cornered or faced with a trade off in return for a promise of a possible reward from a Casino, a film company or smelter company, the Labour Party MPs will have a common reference point and position that will ensure that Labour has a consistent message and policy direction.

Cunliffe’s speech and the policy announcements on a Living Wage, on Housing, on KiwiAssure ( a return to the old State Insurance Company once a jewel in the government’s treasury) and the Christchurch rebuild must be seen as reflections of the coherent policy framework the Conference refined and endorsed over the last weekend.

Because the Conference was essentially a constitutional one the Party also refined its constitutional principles and internal functioning to best reflect both the make up of the Party and the political environment created by MMP. While the decisions may affect the representation of Men, Women and Ethnic groups offered on the Party list and those standing as candidates in Electorates it does not and will not affect the ability of the Party, when in Government, to govern responsibly and effectively.

The reaction of the opinionistas who refer to the constitutional decisions as a “man ban” would appear to be endorsing a belief that the only “real representation” of New Zealand society and, therefore, effective governors, are white, affluent, conservative businessmen who “know” what the people need because they’re “self made men”. This is hardly a belief based on empirical evidence or which has any credibility since the recent economic crashes and the performances of both the UK Conservative Party or the US Republican Party.

The Conference and Cunliffe’s speeches were a signal that Labour will be governing for the mutual good of all members of the New Zealand society. That Labour will govern from sound, coherent and well considered principles and values that have been developed from consultation and endorsed by the wider membership and not by a committee appointed by a few and responsible to no-one but themselves. They also signal a return to the values based on a mutual regard and concern for all who contribute to society and away from the neo-liberal selfishness of the PinoKeyo National-ACT government.

On Moral Outrage and Election Campaigns

Ignoring the total ignorance of NZ Election processes revealed in the the thinking of those involved in the Palino Mayoralty campaign one of the interesting side effects of the Slater- Cook released salacious attempt to unseat Len Brown from the Auckland mayoralty has been the “outrage” expressed by the “moral right”, epitomised by Cameron Brewer and Dick Quax’s commentaries calling for Brown’s resignation and, presumably, public self flagellation.

The Slater group and their supporters have raised their moral knickers high above their heads and called for Brown’s resignation because he was foolish enough to fall for the wiles and sexual promise of a nubile and exotic younger woman. Their argument is based that Brown’s sexual dalliance makes him unfit to be mayor but ignores the greater moral wrong of the use of blackmail in order to gain personal political gain.

Blackmail is defined as extortion of payment in return for silence by using threat or “moral” pressure. It is an offence in law and an offence against society which immediately puts those who have elected to hang their moral knickers on the whale oil dirty laundry line into a very discreditable camp.

If Brown had given into the pseudo moral outrage generated from the salacious revelations      coming from the Slater-Cook camp in their attempt to exploit the “scandal” he would have capitulated to a group who have even more questionable values that those he has been accused of.
One can only assume that for the political hypocrites that have linked themselves to Slater and Cook the irony that they have committed themselves to supporting a greater morally wrong course of behaviour escapes them in their pursuit of power and influence at any cost.

Brown can only be congratulated in his determination to stand against those who are determined to corrupt the local and national political scene.

Mussolini sums up the PinoKeyo policies

Drawing Lines in the Sand. Cunliffe defines the clear differences between Labour and the PinoKeyo Parties.

Building a Future for All

David Cunliffe | 2 Nov 2013

SPEECH TO LABOUR CONFERENCE
CHRISTCHURCH, 2 NOVEMBER 2013
1. Introduction
E nga mana o tenei rohe Ngai Tahu
Tatou katoa te whanau o te reipa
Tena koutou katoa
It’s great to be here with you today, with Christchurch’s new Mayor Lianne, our wonderful President Moira, our fantastic candidate for Christchurch East, Poto Williams, and to be part of the Labour team that is going to win the 2014 election.
I acknowledge our New Zealand Council, Te Kaunihera Maori, our affiliates, sector councils and my caucus colleagues. I want to especially acknowledge our previous leader David Shearer, leadership candidates Grant Robertson and Shane Jones, and my Deputy David Parker.
Mostly, I want to acknowledge you - every member of this, New Zealand’s greatest political party, whose membership has exploded by 75% this year!
We are here with good reason in this great city. To show our solidarity and determination to help get the rebuild moving. And to return a new Labour MP, Poto Williams, in Christchurch East.  Thank you all for being here.
Christchurch, we admire your resilience and your strength. Your compassion for one another, and your determination to rise above adversity are an inspiration to the rest of the country and to this Party.
We are here today united and ready to win.  Not for ourselves, but for every New Zealander who needs a new beginning and wants their country back.
We need to reimagine the future. To rebuild it. To reclaim the Kiwi dream for all New Zealanders.
The New Zealand we will build together is one most Kiwis can today only dream about.
 Let me tell you a local story.
There ‘s a small road on the northern outskirts of Christchurch, just beyond the Styx railway over the bridge.
It is called Cunliffe Road. My grandfather, a railwayman all of his life, and my gran retired there.
They milked a cow; they kept chooks; grew their own veges; and fished for eels in the Styx river at the bottom garden. Like I did.
The house was a stone’s throw from the railway tracks, tracks on which my father’s family worked and which much of the early history of this country was built – with hard labour, with high hopes and fervent dreams of a more prosperous future.
Portraits of King Dick Seddon and Mickey Savage hung in the kitchen.
I grew up the son of a Vicar. We didn’t have much, but we never went without.
There was a good state school for me to go to, healthcare when my dad desperately needed it, and opportunities for me to work hard and get ahead.
We have all heard about our current prime minister’s own humble beginnings, his overseas success and his money trader’s fortune.
But in aspiration and core beliefs John Key and I could not be more different.
John Key and his colleagues grew up in same New Zealand I’ve just been talking about. They personally benefited from these opportunities but now deny them to all but an elite few.
They are pulling the ladder up behind them. – and that’s just wrong.
I got into politics because I believe that all New Zealanders, regardless of background or circumstance, should have the same opportunities.
Only when we all do, will we unlock the boundless potential of this country and its people, creating a better, fairer, more inclusive society that works for all New Zealanders, not just a privileged few.
This weekend, our Party sets out together on a challenging but exciting new path. The stakes could not be higher: for the very future of this country and all who live in it.
I am enlisting your support and commitment to help this Party return to government in 2014.
Helping to create a fairer, more equitable future for all New Zealanders.

2. A Tale of two countries
I grew up in a New Zealand where if you worked hard and played by the rules anyone could get ahead.
It was a country in which Kiwis could trust that government worked more or less in the interests of all its citizens.
Sadly, those days are gone. We are confronted by a government clearly ruling in the interests of a few at the expense of the many, and creating two New Zealands.
One for the rich and powerful, who don’t pay their fair share of tax because they have smart accountants to ensure they avoid it.
And there’s the other New Zealand.
Where people struggle to put food on the table for their families.
Where children go to school hungry, and senior citizens shiver in their homes.
Families who pay tax on every dollar they earn, pick up the slack for the mega-rich and the foreign corporations who don’t.
Middle New Zealand is working harder than ever. And what do they have to show for it?
A dying dream.
Middle-income Kiwi families can’t afford the rent or mortgage because of National’s housing crisis;
They can’t afford power bills from the profiteering companies National is determined to sell;
Many families can’t afford clothes or a treat for the kids, because under National their wages just haven’t kept up.
Now for the first time, a generation of hardworking parents are faced with the shocking prospect their children will do worse than them.
That’s why our best and brightest young people are leaving.
All this did not happen by accident.  National deliberately chose this for New Zealand, because they still believe in outdated policies that reinforce privilege.
Some call it “trickle down”. It’s the idea that if the rich get richer, the poor get lucky. Such neo-liberal policies are fundamentally outdated and the Global Financial Crisis proved they don’t work.
Top economists around the world are casting aside these outdated theories, but National  has not caught up.
Five years ago, John Key told New Zealanders, “wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones’’.
But he only meant it for the privileged few.
He gave massive tax cuts to the rich that they did not need while he put up GST on everyone.
Since that promise, 200,000 Kiwis have voted no confidence, and left.
We’re told we can’t afford the ‘social goods’ that since the time of Michael Joseph Savage have been our Kiwi heritage.
A good government stands alongside New Zealanders in case of disaster, ill health or bad luck.
Good government in partnership with people helps build industries and regions; dams, railways and ports, and plants vast forests.
Those birth-right assets belong to all New Zealanders.  National - they are not yours to sell!
But not content with laissez-faire neoliberalism, National has tilted the playing field even further. Its Hall of Shame involves those shabby deals with Warner Brothers; Sky City; Rio Tinto and Chorus.
Business people are telling me they want no part of that.  They want a level playing field that’s fair and transparent, not one set of rules for National’s mates and another for everyone else.
They also say John Key is a map without a compass; that National has no strategy for the underlying problems of our economy.
Mark my words, John Key’s answer will be to invite the royal family to bring its newest and cutest member here for a long series of photo ops in an election year.
They should come. But will John Key dare take the Duke and Duchess back to McGehan Close?
Will he take them to a closed sawmill in Rotorua or a boarded up tannery in Shannon?
You can be sure he’ll bring them to Parliament. But will they meet the nightshift cleaners he won’t pay a Living Wage?
The contrasts between National and Labour, between their New Zealand and ours, could not be greater.
This government is tired, arrogant and out of touch. It is off-Key and out of tune.
Labour is fresh, energized, true to its founding ideals and full of new ideas.
It is a Party ready to govern on behalf of - and most importantly, alongside – all New Zealanders.

3. Building a Future for All

3.1 An economy that works for all New Zealanders
In the last few weeks my team and I have visited families in Rotorua and Shannon whose lives have been shattered by the closure of their sawmill and their tannery.
They need an economy that works for all New Zealanders.
One that creates more value from every tree we fell, every litre of milk we produce and every fruit we pick.
When National thinks about growth, they think about growing volume. Milking more cows, digging more mines or drilling more holes.
They haven’t got a fracking clue.
There’s only so many cows we can milk without polluting our waterways. There is no limit to the ingenuiety of our Kiwi scientisits in making more high value products from the proteins in our milk.
We will reward innovation. National scrapped Labour’s R&D tax incentive. So our best and brightest took their ideas  offshore.
The journey we need to be on is one from thinking about volume to thinking about creating value.
By contrast, National thinks it makes sense to truck New Zealand logs to a port, ship them to Asia for processing, and then import the timber back here to Christchurch for the rebuild.
How dumb is that?
Our Labour Government will give preference to Kiwi-made timber for the Christchurch rebuild.
When we create value we need more of it to stay in New Zealand so we can share it.
Our economy is being hollowed out because we don’t have enough capital.
Our banking, finance and insurance industries are almost all foreign-owned, which is why we always run an external deficit and build up international debt.
A Labour Government will address this fundamental problem.
By strengthening KiwiSaver. By building up KiwiBank. By restarting contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.
All of these things will help build an economy we own.
Of course we will balance the books, as we did every year in the fifth Labour Government.
But that is not enough to turn around long term economic decline.
Our pro-growth will help local Kiwi businesses access the investment they need to thrive.
And today, in this very brave city, I am announcing that Labour will confront the challenges of an insurance industry that is no longer Kiwi-owned. One we know from painful experience has not met Canterbury’s needs.
Just as KiwiBank gave us a customer-focused, low cost Kiwi-owned bank, KiwiAssure will give everyone a choice for better service, competititive premiums and local ownership that keeps profits here.
KiwiAssure will be a sister company to KiwiBank, within the NZ Post Group.
And like KiwiBank, it will offer customers an alternative and raise the bar across the insurance industry.
We will build an economy  that works for all New Zealanders, by helping create more value and keep more of it onshore.
And having kept more wealth in New Zeaaland, that wealth needs to be shared fairly.
The economy we build will provide secure, well-paid jobs.
We will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour – immediately.
We will promote a Living Wage.
We will protect vulnerable workers.
We will develop a new employment framework built on mutual respect.
We will scrap the unfair 90-day trials and restore fairness in the workplace.
 We will train young Kiwis to rebuild Christchurch.
We won’t give priority to overseas labour which just happens to keep locals out and wages down,
We  will invest more in our people and their skills and training.
Everyone will contribute their fair share.
We will raise the top tax rate for high earners but not middle income families,.
We will target  those who speculate on capital gains and avoid tax using trusts.
We want a level playing field. National wants special deals for its mates.
National gave $30 million to Rio Tinto to keep the smelter’s closure off the TV until after the election.  Labour will have a plan for an energy-rich Southland beyond the smelter.
National bent the rules to sell our laws to Sky City.  Labour will regulate to address gambling harm.
National is about to hand over $400 million of your dollars to Chorus. Labour will deliver faster, cheaper braodband without subsidising foreign  telcos.
 So Labour’s economic plan means creating more value, retaining more value onshore and sharing more value across our community.

3.2 A fair and just society
That’s because Labour believes in a fair and just society where all citizens live in dignity.

• Warm in their homes through a Labour power policy that stops profiteering on electricity;
• Secure because when the worst happens there’s a safety net to catch them and give them a hand up;
• Safe with a world class health system that promotes wellness.
• Secure with Super that means they won’t be living in poverty when they’re old.

A fair society means having a shot at the Kiwi dream, incluiding home ownership.
That’s a dream increasingly out of reach for a great many of our young men and woman beaten down by stagnant wages and skyrocketing house prices.
Labour will build 100,000 affordable homes over over ten years.
We will help first home buyers, not punish them with harsh lending rules.
And unlike National, we won’t let offshore speculators rort our housing market.
A just society gives a great start in life for all our kids..
Labour will extend Paid Parental Leave to 26 weeks.
We won’t tolerate child poverty.
We won’t let kids go to school hungry
We will scrap the National standards
There will be no charter schools.
Instead we will build on New Zealand’s first calss public education system, that is led by some of the best educators in the entire world.

3.3 An environment we protect
Like so many Kiwis, I love our natural environment.
Last weekend I tramped the Routeburn track with my son (until snow turned us back).
As a kid I fished for salmon and trout in Canterbury’s rivers.
I might not look like a pig hunter, but my dad was and as a kid I loved following him through the bush.
We need to protect our forests and rivers and mountains.
Labour will protect our environment.
We will reverse National’s gutting of the Resource Management Act.
We will rebuild our Conservation Department to protect our world-class conservation estate.
We won’t, for example, build a monorail through a world heritage park.
We are not opposed to responsible mining, but we won’t approve new mines on high value conservation land.
We will insist on best practice environment and cleanup standards before we approve any more deep sea oil drilling.
We recognise climate change is a fact, not a philosophy.
We will restore an effective emissions trading scheme. We will not walk away from our responsibities to the planet, its climate or future generations.
We want a high value, low carbon, renewable energy, smart, clean tech future.

3.4 A nation we can all be proud of
Will will give our children a nation to be proud of,.
Including a principled and independent foreign policy.
Labour calls for an informed debate about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement,.
National says it cannot release the negotiating text – that is a cop out.  We expect proper briefings to the public, just as Labour did in government with the China FTA.
While we recognise the potential trade benefits, until there is a full and open debate we are not prepared to sign over a blank cheque on our national sovereignty.
A Labour Government will never spy on our own citizens without a judge’s warrant.
That’s why we will repeal the GCSB Act and replace it with legislation that upholds Kiwis’ rights and freedoms..
We will honour the Treaty of Waitangi,and support the development of a vibrant post settlement Maori renaissance based on mutual respect and partnership.
We will invite New Zealanders to participate in a constitutional conversation to help us towards a mature, stable constitutional form.
We will celebrate our unique identity by supporting our vibrant arts and culture sectors; including a renewed commitment to public broadcasting as one of the most important guardians of our democracy.
Labour will help New Zealanders look to the future with confidence, in who we are, where we stand, where we are going.

4.  Creating the future
Our mission is to Build a Future for All, including an economy that works for everyone, a fair and just society, an environment we protect, and a nation we can be proud of.
Our Party, alongside all New Zealanders, can deliver this vision together.
But first we must win the election in 2014. I know we can win; my colleagues in caucus know it. We need you to know it and believe in it too.
Let’s build on the momentum we have gained.
Here’s what we have to do, caucus and members and supporters, acting as one. We have to organize.
Last election, nearly a million New Zealanders didn’t vote and we didn’t inspire them enough to do so.
With one quarter of that missing million, National’s days in government are over.
Some of them are in Labour’s heartland. They’ve voted for us in the past. We need to persuade them that we will make a real, positive difference in their lives.
Many of the missing million are in the regions. We’re going to crisscross this country until every town knows we are on their side.
We must listen to young people, because everything we do is ultimately for them.
Each of you has the power to help us reach the missing million. They are your neighbours, your co-workers, your friends. Talk about our Labour vision.
Every phone call you make, every piece of mail you deliver, finds us more new supporters.
With our caucus , our members and our supporters working together we are unstoppable.

5. Summary
So together, we are on a mission to win the 2014 election. We are ambitious, not for ourselves, but to serve the people of New Zealand.
Together, we will build a future for the children in this country who live in poverty, who go to school with empty stomachs, whose parents can’t afford to take them to the doctor when they are ill, who contract Third-World diseases through overcrowding in sub-standard housing.
We will build a future for the young people who leave school directionless without support, guidance or prospects.
We will build a future with our young people who come out of university with huge loans, fight their way into poorly paid jobs., and who can’t afford to buy a home of their own.
We will build a future with our businesses and exporters held back by the inflexible Reserve Bank Act that sets inflation as its primary target while ignoring the devastating effects of a high exchange rate.
We will build a future with our scientists who, are forced to look overseas for meaningful work
We will build a future with our public servants – our wonderful policewomen and men, our teachers, our nurses and doctors – whose work and worth has been so undermined and demoralized by this destructive Government.
We will build a future with our artists, authors, musicians and performers – who help us to understand not only where we stand in the world, but to feel comfortable in our own skins – and proud of who we are.
Creative, diverse, compassionate, innovative, generous, determined people happy at home in Aotearoa but punching well above our weight on whatever world stage we appear.
Together, we will build a future for all New Zealanders, with an economy that works for all of us, a fair and just society, an environment we protect, and a nation we can all be proud of.
We are a Party on the march. We are a winning team.
We have an important job to do for all New Zealanders.
We must work. We must win. And we must serve.
I ask you now to join with me in becoming the Sixth Labour Government.
Thank you.