The Guardian commentary is spot on and should be required reading for all New Zealanders after their fool-hardy love affair with the neo-liberal economics of the NACT government of the naked money speculator turned pseudo-politician.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/26/anticapitalism-protest-recession-g20
26 Mar 2009
NZ makes the World Economic News!!
Today's report on New Zealand's economy is a rousing endorsement of John Key's vibrant business focused government.
The report announced that since Key and his Crosby-Textor created government took over the reins the NZ economy has shrunk and has entered into a deeper recession than would have been otherwise expected.
Only four months to really run the economy into a tail-spin!!!!
This report should ensure that the media enchantment with National will continue unabated and the National Party spin-doctors will be heralded as credible authorities on the economy.
The report announced that since Key and his Crosby-Textor created government took over the reins the NZ economy has shrunk and has entered into a deeper recession than would have been otherwise expected.
Only four months to really run the economy into a tail-spin!!!!
This report should ensure that the media enchantment with National will continue unabated and the National Party spin-doctors will be heralded as credible authorities on the economy.
19 Mar 2009
The ACC - Political Distortion & outright Broken Promises
This article demonstrates the truth about National and John Key - absolutely naked underneath the clothing created by Crosby-Textor. The sags & bags of the real National Party stand revealed. The use of Engkeylish is now demostrated.
Rod Oram: ACC - the political claims and the reality
Sunday Star Times
Oram: Politicians are flinging lots of scary numbers around.
Relevant offers
ACC IS a mess, according to the prime minister and Nick Smith, the agency's minister.
Only a wholesale clearout of ACC's board and changes to legislation and policy will secure its future, they say.
To make their case, the two politicians are flinging lots of scary numbers around. ACC has suffered a "very significant blowout in its liabilities" to $22 billion, the prime minister said on TV3 on Tuesday.
ACC is "massively" under-funded, so either "premiums will go up and go up enormously so literally mum and dad will be paying thousands of dollars a year more or we get on top of this scheme", he added.
For his part, Smith said on March 4 that the latest analysis of ACC's liabilities "translates into ACC levy increases over the next five years of 185% for employees, 71% for employers, 129% for motor vehicle owners".
But there is a huge gap between the rhetoric of John Key and Smith, and reality.
Liabilities: They are indeed $21.875b according to the latest report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, ACC's actuaries. And they will have risen by $9.2b in the three financial years ending this June.
But these liabilities stretch out a maximum of 40 years. And they are highly influenced by changes in economic conditions, investment returns, discount rates, accounting standards and actuarial assumptions.
Over the past year, those external factors have contributed the lion's share of the increase in liabilities. For example, a change in international accounting standards for all insurers contributed $1.45b to the $9.2b.
Some of these adverse factors will turn positive in due course. If ACC massively hiked premiums now to cover paper liabilities, it would have to offer massive refunds when the liabilities failed to eventuate. Instead, it manages prudently by smoothing such swings over the medium term.
Funding: From its inception in 1974 to 1999, ACC was funded on a pay-as-it-goes basis from the levies of the day and annual government grants. But its long-term liabilities were largely unfunded.
When Labour took office in 1999, it decided to be prudent. It set the goal of achieving full funding for all liabilities by 2014, and beefed up ACC's finances to set it on that path. From 1999 to 2008, ACC had improved from 64% under-funded to 45%.
Turmoil in global financial markets has hit investment returns over the past year, delaying progress to full funding. But ACC was on to it. Over a year ago, it recommended to Maryan Street, ACC minister in the previous government, that the date for full funding should be moved to 2019. Doing so halves the increases in ACC levies that would otherwise be required to meet the goal.
As her successor, Smith agrees in ACC meetings that the date should be moved. But he continues to use estimates of levy increases, as he did on March 4, based on the current date, thereby seriously distorting the view the public is getting of ACC.
Levies: ACC's activities are divided up into six accounts. Levies fund four, the government one and a mix of the two fund the last. The process of setting levies is thorough and transparent. For example, a steering committee includes representatives from Business New Zealand, the Council of Trade Unions and the AA.
At the end of its part of the process, ACC recommends new levies to its minister. The minister then takes independent advice from the Department of Labour before making a proposal to cabinet.
Back in October, ACC recommended modest increases to levies for the coming financial year. In contrast, the Department of Labour recommended far higher ones, mostly because it was pushing for full-funding on the old timetable.
Smith used these unreasonable Department of Labour figures to fulminate about ACC's alleged shortcomings and to scare people into believing massive hikes were coming.
But lo and behold, on three of the four accounts funded by levies, the government has agreed to exactly the low increases ACC proposed. Only on one account did it set the rate slightly higher.
The rates are bargains. For example, the work account remains fully funded even though the levy for employers and self-employed rises only 4% from $1.26 to $1.31 per $100 of payroll. This even covers large increases in the likes of doctors' and nurses' wages.
And they are bargains by international comparison. According to Pricewaterhouse-Coopers' mammoth study of ACC last year, the average levy here was 94 cents per $100 of payroll in 2006-07 while the average Australian rate was $1.73, ranging from a low of $1.18 in Queensland to a high of $3.14 in South Australia.
Entitlements: The previous National government had made ACC a mean and ugly agency. Policy directives forced it to cut corners and throw people off benefits at the earliest opportunity. If you felt hard done by, you had to go to court.
The Labour government somewhat widened the scope of ACC by, for example, removing the malpractice test on medical injury, doing more for long-term workplace injuries such as hearing loss and bringing in hard to define but real issues such as workplace trauma.
The new National government sharply criticises these increased entitlements. It is threatening to roll them back. Yet, of the $9.2b increase to $22b in ACC's liabilities for the three years to this June, only $595m came from cabinet-approved rate increases and new programmes plus $205m from court-imposed rulings and government legislative changes to expand the scheme's coverage.
The new government seems particularly worried about ACC's non-earners account. It is the second-largest of the six accounts and it is the only one the government funds directly and exclusively. And it is the one for which it has had to find recently an additional $297m.
This fund covers people not in paid work, that is, mostly young and older citizens. More than 45% of all ACC claims are made through it, yet it represents less than 20% of ACC's liabilities. If the government is trying to cut this account, it will run into a storm of public protest.
Rehabilitation: ACC's record on getting people back to work is deteriorating, the government says. Yes, it has slipped. But there is a small global decline in return to work rates for a wide range of factors, including an ageing workforce. ACC's performance is still better than Australia's and among the best in the world. Moreover, the same slight downward trend applies to the 24% of our workforce covered by the accredited employers programme. So there is no difference between ACC or employers handling their rehabilitation.
Costs: The comments of Key and Smith might give you the impression that ACC has poor cost control. In fact, PWC's analysis shows ACC's work account claims management and administration costs were 19.7% of services against the Australian average of 25.2%. In other words, ACC pays out 80.3c of every dollar on compensation and services whereas the Australians pay out only 74.8c.
Yes, in these tighter times even better budget control is needed. ACC was long working on that before National came to power.
Investments: You might also have thought from government comments that ACC's investment managers had lost a bundle in the global financial markets.
In fact, for the seven months to the end of January they earned a positive return of 2.73%, a gain almost all other fund managers only dreamed of as global markets crashed.
Unusually, ACC has its own in-house investment team led by Nicholas Bagnall and Phil Newport. They have outperformed all comparable investment teams in the private sector in New Zealand for the past 10 years and in Australasia for the past seven, earning a return of 8.7% a year. ACC has out-performed the Superannuation Fund since the latter's inception, despite the latter's more costly use of external fund managers.
All the information in this column comes from widely available sources, including ACC's briefing to the incoming minister, dated November 2008.
So the government can only be taking its extreme line on ACC because it's panicking or politicking.
If it is the latter, it must have its sights set on sharply cutting ACC's services.
12 Mar 2009
P.M. reveals general knowledge
At a recent summit junket convened by the government in an effort to discover how to deliver the ball from a rolling maul John Key was introduced to a noted psychiatrist who was advising the politicians about psychosomatic illnesses in communities hit by collapsing banks and the efects of money speculation.
Key took the opportunity to ask how the psychiatrist could detect mental deficiency in someone who otherwise appeared normal and in control of a situation.
The good Doctor said, "You ask a simple question that everyone should be able to answer. If he hesitates, that puts you on the right track. I'd ask, "Captain Cook made three voyagesaround the world and died during one of them. Which one?"
Key thought deeply for sometime and finally responded with a nervous laugh, "I'm a banker at heart. You wouldn't have an easier question would you. I must confess I don't know much about history."
Key took the opportunity to ask how the psychiatrist could detect mental deficiency in someone who otherwise appeared normal and in control of a situation.
The good Doctor said, "You ask a simple question that everyone should be able to answer. If he hesitates, that puts you on the right track. I'd ask, "Captain Cook made three voyagesaround the world and died during one of them. Which one?"
Key thought deeply for sometime and finally responded with a nervous laugh, "I'm a banker at heart. You wouldn't have an easier question would you. I must confess I don't know much about history."
27 Feb 2009
National's Perpetual Talk the Talk but not Walk the walk fests
Communities want job security and income protection.
I have been critical of the government’s job summit as being a mere talkfest, that government wasn’t moving quick enough while the plight of our economy continues to grow, that Government was excluding ordinary communities from the summit, and that the very communities that will suffer the greatest from a depression would not have a voice in the summit. Then as I watched the television coverage of the event, I have to admit; the Government looked good. Admittedly, the television coverage of the event was carefully orchestrated and clinically scripted suggesting duplicitous behaviour for the sake of politics.Nevertheless, the most innovative idea I picked up from the news coverage is the 9 day working fortnight with one day for education and this should be explored. The initial concerns by ordinary families on this idea will be who will pay workers for the days they give up? If no one pays us, how will we meet our daily living expenses if we are forced to give up what would normally be a paid working day? If our incomes are reduced by one day will our fixed daily expenses such as rent, power, water, sewage, and phone lines be reduced as well?
To add further concerns to troubled minds, the inability of the Government to come clean on what it intends to do with the Super Fund is cause for considerable distress amongst our senior citizens. Many Grey Power members remember well the Government that reduced superannuation to 60% of the average wage in the 1990s.
Then on Sunday the Government’s ‘fire at will 90 day’ law will come into force on the premise that it will boost employment opportunities with small to medium sized businesses. In reality however, National is telling employers they can hire people for up to three months and then get rid of them without any hassles. All this law will do is remove worker’s rights to take personal grievances for reasons of unjustified dismissal and will leave workers open to being taken advantage of, and abused by unscrupulous employers. This is another cause for more worry by ordinary communities.
Notwithstanding, the real test now is how Government will give confidence to its citizens that it will meet the needs of all families, especially vulnerable communities throughout New Zealand.
In Mangere, families aren’t just concerned about job security, we are also concerned about income protection, and how the needs of our families will be sustained now and into future years.
8 Dec 2008
Botany MP Caught OUT??
How much credibilty does Pansy Have?
The answer: NONE.
Earlier in November,Pansy Wong assured the Principal of Howick College that the much vaunted "National Standards" testing had gone even before lunchtime. It appears that Ms Wong was somewhat economical with the truth or else she, as a cabinet minister, was considerably out of the policy loop, which doesn't say a lot about her influence, or that she was following the party mantra of simply tailoring her response to the Principal to suit the political circumstance.
Whichever way it was it appears that she deliberately misled a large group of her constituents following the Howick College Senior Honours Ceremony as Mr Slippery has announced the decision to ram through the "National Standards" testing inside the first 100 days.
Either Pansy comes clean and publically apologises to the Principal, staff and parents of Howick College for deliberately misleading them or she admits that she is an ineffective and purely token member of the cabinet and remains silent on the issue.
Perhaps, more honorably, she should speak and voteagainst a piece of legislation she obviously disagrees with. Now, wouldn't THAT be a change?
The answer: NONE.
Earlier in November,Pansy Wong assured the Principal of Howick College that the much vaunted "National Standards" testing had gone even before lunchtime. It appears that Ms Wong was somewhat economical with the truth or else she, as a cabinet minister, was considerably out of the policy loop, which doesn't say a lot about her influence, or that she was following the party mantra of simply tailoring her response to the Principal to suit the political circumstance.
Whichever way it was it appears that she deliberately misled a large group of her constituents following the Howick College Senior Honours Ceremony as Mr Slippery has announced the decision to ram through the "National Standards" testing inside the first 100 days.
Either Pansy comes clean and publically apologises to the Principal, staff and parents of Howick College for deliberately misleading them or she admits that she is an ineffective and purely token member of the cabinet and remains silent on the issue.
Perhaps, more honorably, she should speak and voteagainst a piece of legislation she obviously disagrees with. Now, wouldn't THAT be a change?
25 Nov 2008
Cabinet Appointees -stable or not ? a Key question.
The National cabinet has been appointed in the manner befitting an autocrat. Key has appointed a group of courtiers who, in the manner of the Fairy Tale Emporer, will, on seeing his new clothes, inform him that they are a perfect fit even though all other observers can recognise the imperfections, the fakery and appeal to vanity that is the reality of those clothes. The new cabinet will soon find that their appeal, as acolytes, will soon fade both for Key and the real politic in the electorates as , very soon, the repeated blanishments of empty praise pall for both the appointer and the wider audience.
In an earlier blog I pointed out that Key had been, folowing the advice of Crosby-Textor, dressing himself in clothing borrowed from greater men in preparation for the election campaign and that the imagery behind these borrowed vestments would be exploited for the duration of the campaign and the first symbolic 100 days of power.
After this Key would initially keep wearing the clothes but, like the Anderson's emporer, slowly cast them aside until someone (Maurice Williamson perhaps?) cries ot that "There are no real clothes being worn" and the demands for Key and the party he represents dress in the manner to which they are accustomed.
At present Key has surrounded himself with those, like him, who wear the election campaign image. Their tenure and security will remain until the demand from the Party's traditional constituency to return to their philosophic basics reveals his fundamental insincerity and philosophic shallowness.
Cracks in te artifical gloss on this cabinet are already apparent for those, unlike the Herald reporters, look in depth at the blogs and research sources.
Here, for instance is Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Welfare, on the National Party during her student days:
"Newly elected National Party MP of Waitakere has been found out about her past days as a National Party bagger. Using her pseudonym Paula Poo she lambasted the National Party for cutting Education and increasing student fees , these comments made when Paula was President of the Massey University Student Association;
"Fees suck and fee increases just piss me off. Damn the Nat's who bring cuts to our education system, make us pay for them out of student loans that will take many people decades to pay off. In my own case, I will probably still be paying off my student loan when my daughter gets to university age; her future looks promising!"
When urging her fellow university students to make their vote count she said ... "don't vote for f**k wits."
Reconciling these views of her favoured political party with her present reality will take a lot of doing ... unless, of course, she is locked into the groove of praising new clothes.
Another crack in Key's reality comes from Pansy Wong who informed the Principal of Howick College, after he had made a speech to the school prize giving ceremony calling for the policy to be abandoned, that the much trumpeted testing against "national" standards had been swept from the table even before the lunchtime bell had been rung despite her local colleague and cabinet minister (outside the room) Maurice Williamson telling the Eastern Courier that the policy still stood.
There has been a glimmer of analysis of the wisdom of Key's appointments appearing in the media, especially over the relationship with Rodney "Rheinfeld" Hide and his role as "Minister" of Local Government for it is in this area that the real agenda that lies beneath the "emporer's"new clothes will be revealed.
Once "Rheinfeld" Hide begins to cry "Master! Master! Help me!" to Nosferatu Douglas and John Key begins the return to the National Party's roots the electorate will see the dismantling of the image... watch out for slash & burn attacks on Kiwisaver, on welfare, the Cullen Fund and other areas of social expenditure with the excuse of " dire economic times" and the "international credit crisis" have forced the Government to back down on so many of the implied policies offered during the election campaign ... we will see how apposite Paula Bennett's earlier advice to the readers of her blog were.
In an earlier blog I pointed out that Key had been, folowing the advice of Crosby-Textor, dressing himself in clothing borrowed from greater men in preparation for the election campaign and that the imagery behind these borrowed vestments would be exploited for the duration of the campaign and the first symbolic 100 days of power.
After this Key would initially keep wearing the clothes but, like the Anderson's emporer, slowly cast them aside until someone (Maurice Williamson perhaps?) cries ot that "There are no real clothes being worn" and the demands for Key and the party he represents dress in the manner to which they are accustomed.
At present Key has surrounded himself with those, like him, who wear the election campaign image. Their tenure and security will remain until the demand from the Party's traditional constituency to return to their philosophic basics reveals his fundamental insincerity and philosophic shallowness.
Cracks in te artifical gloss on this cabinet are already apparent for those, unlike the Herald reporters, look in depth at the blogs and research sources.
Here, for instance is Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Welfare, on the National Party during her student days:
"Newly elected National Party MP of Waitakere has been found out about her past days as a National Party bagger. Using her pseudonym Paula Poo she lambasted the National Party for cutting Education and increasing student fees , these comments made when Paula was President of the Massey University Student Association;
"Fees suck and fee increases just piss me off. Damn the Nat's who bring cuts to our education system, make us pay for them out of student loans that will take many people decades to pay off. In my own case, I will probably still be paying off my student loan when my daughter gets to university age; her future looks promising!"
When urging her fellow university students to make their vote count she said ... "don't vote for f**k wits."
Reconciling these views of her favoured political party with her present reality will take a lot of doing ... unless, of course, she is locked into the groove of praising new clothes.
Another crack in Key's reality comes from Pansy Wong who informed the Principal of Howick College, after he had made a speech to the school prize giving ceremony calling for the policy to be abandoned, that the much trumpeted testing against "national" standards had been swept from the table even before the lunchtime bell had been rung despite her local colleague and cabinet minister (outside the room) Maurice Williamson telling the Eastern Courier that the policy still stood.
There has been a glimmer of analysis of the wisdom of Key's appointments appearing in the media, especially over the relationship with Rodney "Rheinfeld" Hide and his role as "Minister" of Local Government for it is in this area that the real agenda that lies beneath the "emporer's"new clothes will be revealed.
Once "Rheinfeld" Hide begins to cry "Master! Master! Help me!" to Nosferatu Douglas and John Key begins the return to the National Party's roots the electorate will see the dismantling of the image... watch out for slash & burn attacks on Kiwisaver, on welfare, the Cullen Fund and other areas of social expenditure with the excuse of " dire economic times" and the "international credit crisis" have forced the Government to back down on so many of the implied policies offered during the election campaign ... we will see how apposite Paula Bennett's earlier advice to the readers of her blog were.
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