Robson-on-Politics 28 03 07

Valuing the contribution of working families

Many New Zealanders will be celebrating the law change on Sunday to extend to working people an extra week of minimum paid holidays a year.

Progressive's Four Weeks' Annual Leave law change, which was introduced as a private member's Bill just after the 2002 election, was a highlight for Progressive in the 2002-2005 Parliament. The joint Progressive Party-CTU-Engineers Union campaign finally won the day and the Progressive Bill was incorporated as a Labour-Progressive coalition government measure.

Not a flip flop for Labour just a turning on of the light.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=74

For those wanting to work out holiday entitlements, the Department of Labour's site is worth a check:

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00278.htm

Extending the benefits of economic growth to the retired

Sunday, April 1, is also when Progressive's 2005 policy to utilise the gains of recent economic growth to raise the floor for married National Super to 66% of the after-tax ordinary wage cuts in.

www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=131

Auckland Progressive Party meeting on Saturday, March 31

We've had an independent Left Party represented in Parliament since 1989. That is nearly 20 years or a whole generation in Biblical terms and I think we've achieved a life-time worth of gains that we probably didn't dare hope we would achieve 18 years ago.

_www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=25

In a way, the extent of our progressive gains can be measured in the extent to which previous cheer-leaders for the programme of the 1987-1990 Labour and 1990-1999 National/NZ First/United policies now have serious doubts.

Not many people these days, for example, think the fire-sale of Telecom by Labour in 1990 assisted New Zealand's economic development or increased the penetration of high-speed Internet and other telecommunications services into our economy and society.

Even the New Zealand Herald here in Auckland these days has come round to accepting that something is seriously astray in the state of affairs of New Zealand's telecommunications framework - the only question is what, not if, the democratically-elected central government in Wellington should do to fix the mess.

www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10429883

But going forward, what is the best contribution that progressives can contribute to advance the programme that the coalition government has been implementing since December 1999?

Should we put up candidates of our own in 2008, or should we focus instead on promoting policies and try to win public support for progressive ideas instead via participating in community programmes?

It isn't as if there are not still some major progressive policies that need to be implemented. In Auckland, very significant further investment in the public transport system must be adopted by decision makers at local and central government level.

www.stuff.co.nz/4005138a1865.html

There remains plenty of work to be done to reduce poverty, to build on the skills training and job creation initiatives that have been put in place over the past 7 years of progressive coalition government.

All Auckland Progressive Party members are welcome to attend a policy and strategy meeting on March 31, 10 to 1.30 at the Tongan Methodist Church in Grey Street in Onehunga to discuss policy and strategy for progressives and progressive-minded people looking ahead.

N.C.E.A. was one of the better ideas to come out of the 1980s/1990s

This concerted media campaign against N.C.E.A. by some taxpayer-funded principals allegedly working for the benefit of students at our tax-payer owned schools is relentless, isn't it?

I hope none of those State schools are using any of their N.C.E.A. school "contributions" (also known as fees, or donations for tax rebate purposes) to in any way cross-subsidize their Cambridge activities.

What the principals should really be calling for is an increase in taxation to the government so that the government can in turn invest more in public education - the main issue with N.C.E.A. is that it could do with more investment, more and better paid teachers and more resources.

www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00084A04-76A4-15FF-B21F83027AF1015D

Latest polls show Left vs. Right contest unchanged

At the Executive meeting of the party in Wellington in February, I was tasked with work on some internal party communications which will take precedence over coming weeks and months for me which may mean that Robson-on-politics is not posted out so regularly.

I thought that I would point out, however, that at the end of March the overall level of support for Left is hardly changed from the level it has been at since about mid-1998 - hardly the impression you might get from the pompous claims of the National Party in the media recently.

In the Morgan Poll over the week-end, for example, LPG Labour-Progressive-Green would win 57 seats if an election were held now. That is how many seats LPG currently has in Parliament at the moment.

The Morgan Poll, shows that the right wing parties would win 60 seats in Parliament, unchanged from at present, and that the Maori Party will emerge from next year's election in a strong position - in other words, no change to the current situation:

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4150/

ENDS

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