Robson-on-Politics 28 February 2007

Upgrading our housing stock

A positive highlight for me among the many government annoucements over the past 7 days came from Chris Carter with the news of the investment in upgrading the social housing stock. The deal aims to improve the quality of life for about 4,000 people and also to better permit the Wellington City Council to retain, and improve, its housing stock over time.

It's the opposite of the slash and burn anti-housing record of the last National-NZ First and National-United governments of the '90s:

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0702/S00408.htm

Something to come home to

Ensuring that all Kiwi children live in safe, healthy homes has always been a burning ambition for progressives in New Zealand.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=157

And ensuring that families that want to own their own house have an opportunity to do so has also been a long-held progressive ambition. We know that for too many families seeking to buy their own home, the biggest obstacle is getting the deposit together. The Progressive Party has campaigned in the past for families to be able to capitalise family support to finance a deposit and the whole issue is an area where progressive-minded people will need to put more research and thought into as we update policies going into next year's election because we can be sure that the "expert economists" will say in unison that it is all too hard or too impractical and so on.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=94

We need an ambitious but realistic package of policies that assist more families to get into their own homes without adding to the woes of exporters labouring under the high Kiwi dollar which is accompanying the ongoing strength in the domestic part of our economy.

People have sent in their ideas about alternative ways of damping down high house price inflation other than by bringing in a mortgage levy such as bringing New Zealand capital gains tax rules into line with the rest of the O.E.C.D., including on the sale of investment properties; a more progressive income tax regime; a proposal to cut back on some areas of central government spending over the next year or two to help take pressure off domestic demand.

A social contract approach
National and their friends wouldn't approve, but it is worth remembering that the Social Contract between trade unions, employers and the federal government in Australia allowed better coordination of fiscal policy (i.e. government spending and taxing decisions) and monetary policy (i.e. the level at which the central bank sets interest rates and therefore influences the value of the exchange rate) in Australia during the 1980s and early 1990s.

That was a period when Australia strongly out-performed New Zealand both economically and socially and it was also of course that horrible period in New Zealand when we rejected the socalled social contract approach.

Progressive worker unions this year, for example, could campaign for part of the year's annual wage rise be paid out not in cash but in higher contributions to KiwiSaver savings - so helping take a bit of pressure out of the domestic economy at this period when exporters are struggling while also helping New Zealand improve its overall national savings performance.

www.epmu.org.nz/SITE_Default/news/media/2007_02_21_FairShare_Launch.asp

The huge human cost of apartheid trade barriers

I guess we all know in a general sense about the very unfair trading rules that condemn many in parts of the Third World to poverty and political instability - rules that therefore contribute to conflict and violence in the world.

The prime culprits for this state of affairs are the governments in the European Union, the U.S. and Japan.

The other day I read an article that measured the dollar extent to which punitive U.S. import taxes really smash some of the poorest of the Earth - making it that much harder for societies like Bangladesh and Cambodia to pull themselves up by their own hard work, to trade their way out of poverty by selling the goods that they are most competitive at producing to the richest consumer market in the world.

www.betterfactories.org

The average tariff rate that the U.S. Government imposes on imports from Bangladesh last year stood at 15.2 percent and for Cambodian exports it stood at 16.9 percent.

www.mofa.gov.bd/statements/fm30.htm

By way of contrast, the average U.S. import tax tariff rate imposed on British exports in the same year was under 1%.

Democratic Party Senator Dianne Feinstein, from California, is leading a push to pull down these economic apartheid walls in a move that is inspiring hope that there may be positive change when the current bankrupt Republican administration gets its marching orders from the American people.

httpp://feinstein.senate.gov

Iraq effect: U.S./U.K./Aussie war increased terrorism 7-fold

But it isn't just the economically unjust trade policies of the Bush Administration et al that directly contributes to making the world a less safe, and less prosperous place, than it could be.

The effect of the illegal invasion and ongoing military occupation of Iraq has contributed to a seven-fold increase in acts of terrorism from Sunni extremist groups, according to a recent empirical study: That's right, the rate of fatal terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist groups, and the number of people killed in those attacks, increased dramatically after the invasion of Iraq. Globally there was a 607 percent rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks (28.3 attacks per year before and 199.8 after) and a 237 percent rise in the fatality rate (from 501 to 1,689 deaths per year). A large part of this rise occurred in Iraq, the scene of almost half the global total of jihadist terrorist attacks. But even excluding Iraq and Afghanistan there has been a 35 percent rise in the number of attacks, with a 12 percent rise in fatalities.

www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/aftermath.html?welcome=true

So what should we expect the unpopular governments in U.S., Australia to do?

It would be nice to think that political leaders like Bush, Blair and Howard would admit their policies are an utter failure by any measure and that they will instead have a total re-think. News reports over the past week make it clear that isn't going to happen.

In fact, and incredibly, there is growing expectations that the Republican Government will order a military attack on Iran, a predominantly Shiia society that is a bitter, historic foe of the Sunni jihadist terrorists that gave the world 9/11 and other criminal acts.

Iran is also a bitter enemy of the same jihadist terrorists that are flourishing in the chaos of Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and other parts of the world recently subjected to U.S./U.K. foreign policy "intervention".

Why does all of this matter to us here?

Because next year there will be a General Election. Can we trust the Right-wing parties not to risk young New Zealanders' lives in pointless, criminal and unwinnable overseas wars which have nothing to do with us and which go against international law and morality?

I hope everyone heard what the Leader of the NZ First Party has to say about Iraq in the past 24 hours.

What he said makes no sense: It is the illegitimate occupation (according to a majority of Iraqis) that is a primary, direct contributor to the rise in terrorism, not vice versa.

www.juancole.com/2005/03/foreign-occupation-has-produced.html

We must do everything to stop the election of a coalition government that would risk young New Zealand lives in illegal, self-defeating overseas war adventures dreamt up in Washington D.C.

ENDS

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