Tag: nz politics

Paul Henry Again

I almost didn’t post about this, because everyone’s talking about it and surely everything I could come up with will have been covered off most thoroughly by other, wiser writers. But I decided I would anyway, to add my small gust to the storm of disapproval. And because once I’ve written about it I can stop thinking about it.

Breakfast TV panderer Paul Henry dug gleefully into the mire yesterday morning, with comments amounting to a claim that a major public figure wasn’t a proper New Zealander because he didn’t have the right colour skin or an appropriate name.

Henry has a history of provocation, and the line has always been “he says what people are thinking”. Previously he’s caused fury by ridiculing a female guest for her facial hair, calling Susan Boyle “retarded”, and saying that homosexuals are unnatural. This, however, is a whole new level of controversy, as Henry and TVNZ are belatedly realizing.

Henry has waded deep into an argument about what it means to be a New Zealander; it’s something that has been bubbling under in this country for years now, pretty much since our immigration laws relaxed in the late 80s. You see it in the fierce opposition to “special treatment” for Maori; you see it in the eyeroll-inducing campaign to nullify the census ethnicity question by writing in “New Zealander”; you see it in the rough treatment meted out to Asian immigrants. We are becoming a more diverse people, and the Pakeha majority isn’t entirely sure what it thinks about that.

But, while there is anxiety and argument, the public discourse has very clearly settled on criteria for being a New Zealander that is not about skin colour or the number of syllables in your surname. There is argument about whether a proper New Zealander is one who supports the NZ cricket team over that of their own country; about whether a proper New Zealander needs to be fluent in English; about whether a proper New Zealander can wear the hijab. There is no argument about whether you can be a New Zealander if you’re Nigerian, or Japanese, or Fijian-Indian. New Zealandness is open to everyone.

Paul Henry’s comments reveal a nasty truth: that for many people, this isn’t true. New Zealandness isn’t open to everyone. Public discourse positions New Zealandness as behavioural, and therefore egalitarian and in tune with our national mythology. Unrepresented in the public discourse is the sense of fear and resistance to a diverse New Zealand, to an increasingly multi-coloured population, to racial difference. These sentiments are not suitable for public forums, and are kept out of sight. Henry has voiced the unvoiceable, casting a shadow over the entire discussion about multicultural New Zealand. Is it really about sports team loyalty and headscarves? Or is it truthfully about skin colour?

The comeback on this will come from both sides of the political aisle, quite simply because there is no party in NZ parliament that is aligned with racism. (At the moment.) National and ACT, our right-wing voices, are both clearly supportive of diversity, and have both made significant efforts to involve ethnic communities in their activities, National with quite some success. Their views don’t allow for “special treatment” and so forth, but they are quite clear that the door is open to people of any colour with whatever funny-sounding surnames they like.

There is, however, a substantial rump of Kiwis who will nod along with Paul Henry, who will agree wholeheartedly with the initial TVNZ spin line of “Paul just says what we are all thinking”. (And I hope there’s some thunder and lightning in the corridors of TVNZ, sterilising the place of that horrid suggestion.) They are a concern. They are feeling left behind in a changing nation, and resentful of their shrinking space in the public discourse. Perhaps this furore might provide an opportunity to address them, to dig into what is driving their reflexive resistance, and find a way to communicate better about what New Zealand is becoming and how much, much more is gained than can possibly be lost. (The equivalent rump in the U.S. was captured by demagoguery to become the raging tea party movement – that couldn’t happen here, but the emotions at work are the same.)

To address this unpleasantness would take leadership. And so I turn to the real scandal here, that of our Prime Minister John Key grinning and shrugging off Henry’s comments as if they were a mildly off-colour joke. Even now Key refuses to condemn Henry. That is what makes me furious – not Henry’s comments and his smug non-apologies, which are par for the course for a media personality employed to be controversial and earning massive popularity as a result. Henry is there to say awful things. But John Key should be there to lead, to take hold of a situation and stand up for the fundamental principles of our nationhood. Instead he folded and enabled. This is not what we should expect from a Prime Minister. Aunty Helen would have torn out Henry’s beating heart and incinerated it with lasers from her eyes. (Of course, Key’s current counterpart Phil Goff has been utterly useless even in opposition.)

So I’m pleased to see at least a little bit of heat directed at Key over this. But, frankly, there should be more. Key deserves a rebuke from New Zealand, from his supporters as well as his foes. He should be held to a higher standard.

Brian Drain

John Key was on the telly defending his tax cuts etc and I perked up when John Campbell cited back Key’s argument that we have to sort out our economy or more bright young Kiwis will go overseas.

This is the fabled Brain Drain that has been bubbling along in NZ political discourse for, I dunno, fifteen years? It has a long and contentious history in other parts of the world too. The basic idea is that valuable people take off for other places because their prospects are better there.

It is often used to justify tax cuts. Because desire for a lesser tax burden is a major driver of emigration. (No it isn’t.) Job opportunities, however, definitely drive emigration, always have, and it’s no secret that NZ doesn’t offer the wide range of high-skill, high-paying jobs that you can find in major global cities like London and New York. Heck, even Melbourne takes us to the cleaners in terms of high-end job opportunities.

I’ve finally put my finger on why I don’t care about the brain drain.

It’s because I live in a semi-diaspora. I’m a Kiwi, and I have a strong identification with this island nation, and I know people who identify in the same way and who live all over the planet. This is the underlying theme of Saatchi’s NZ Edge initiative – we’re everywhere.

So what is lost when our best and brightest go overseas? Well, their economic productivity is no longer contributing to NZ’s national balance sheet. And… that’s it, right? That’s not an insignificant concern, but you know, I value our transnational identity far more than that. And not in a purely symbolic way, either; it’s obvious that the Kiwi semi-diaspora delivers significant economic benefits to NZ, and I think those benefits are likely to cover a bunch of what we’ve “lost”.

As long as NZ continues to be a functional economic unit in this increasingly globalised world, then let our best and brightest go out into the world. This nation will never be able to provide equivalent opportunities here; it’s madness to think we could. We’re a small nation and we should focus on doing what we do best, and let the rest of the world work its charms.

Because if we’re doing it right then we’ll get high-value smart people working in this country anyway (e.g. in our film industry).

And if we’re making NZ a great place to live then those diaspora Kiwis will often find their way home.

Because there’s more to life than tax rates and income. I’d guess that every Kiwi I know could earn more money in some other country.

I guess we like it here.

Emissions Trading Begins

The NZ emissions trading scheme launches in NZ today. It’s a market-based mechanism putting a price on carbon emissions as a means of holding back climate change, or more correctly, a step towards full-cost accounting in the environmental arena.

It’s a good thing. The ETS is riddled with holes and problems, according to sources I trust (e.g. this book co-authored by the very smart economist and all-around good egg Geoff Bertram), but fundamentally I’m pleased that we’ve managed to get a price of some kind on at least some of the carbon emissions generated out of NZ. There has been a fair bit of shouting about the ETS, including a protest at Parliament and lots of letters to the editor, but my impression is that these objections didn’t run deep – the public perception is in support of an ETS (c.f. Now We Have Won).

The Key government has delivered something worthwhile here, for all their many flaws. Yes, it is a full six months after the deadline Key set for imposition of the ETS, but it’s still 2010 – not too late to get changes rolling. So Key, in the end, wasn’t a Rodney – well, not as much of one as I feared. I suspect Nick Smith deserves some kudos for this, because you can be certain he was talked to about backing down from the ETS plenty of times but he has withstood this pressure. Well done that man.

The international effects of this will not be small, either. We are another country putting our markets where our mouths are, and even if we’re not nearly at the level the science calls for, we’re part of a growing consensus that action is needed and needed now. Our ETS will influence our trade partner nations and others besides. It’s a worthy and important position in which to be.

It’s important to note, however, that this isn’t the end of the story, but rather the long-delayed beginning. As Bertram & co’s book notes, our ETS needs to be improved, made more fair and comprehensive and convincing. Ordinary households are going to feel the bite at the petrol pump and the power bill, with corporations relatively insulated from the new costs – that needs to change. Popular support for the ETS needs to continue at the current level despite the extra costs starting to pinch. Indeed, popular support for the ETS needs to grow. It’s a massive communications challenge and one the current government will think twice about working on, especially if it starts to hurt their electability. Once again, the responsibility falls at the feet of ordinary people like me and you to think about the scheme, judge the costs worthwhile, and spread that message around.

Anyway. It’s a good day. I’m happy.

Prison Smoking Ban

The thing that frustrates me the most about NZ politics in general, and this government in particular, is just how petty it is. They’ve just announced a smoking ban to go into effect in prisons. The line being spun is so disingenuous it hurts to read it:

Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the move was about improving health.
“Why is it that every other workplace can be smokefree except for Corrections? I find that unfair.
“Corrections is very well practised at dealing with people who have addictions and helping them get over them. This is a prison – it’s not a home.”
Though it has not yet happened, there was also a serious risk that staff or a non-smoking inmate could sue the department for not protecting their health.

Collins doesn’t care one tiny bit about the welfare of Corrections staff – pushing double-bunking and a sudden, blanket smoking ban is a recipe for riots, intimidation and worse. And fearing that someone could sue the department? That’s really a serious risk? Google doesn’t find much, even from the notoriously legalistic U.S. environment – I find mention of one case in Canada, where an inmate with asthma was not put in the agreed smokefree wing, and another also from Canada that I can’t find except behind the login wall at the Canadian HR Reporter from April this year:
“Galarneau said she was exposed to inappropriate amounts of second-hand smoke in various locations, including cell blocks. She said partial bans were ineffective because ventilation systems blew smoke around inside the facility.
But it was reasonable for CSC to balance employees’ rights to a healthy workplace with inmates’ rights to smoke in their living environment, found the board. The inmates’ successful court challenge – which pointed out no blanket ban on smoking had ever been enacted in Canada – showed CSC had to keep inmate rights in mind as it implemented the policy.”

Facts and context are in short supply, which is hardly a surprise. The mission of this announcement is to give the appearance of punishing prisoners: it’s a ritualistic act of ruthlessness towards a group who represent all the problems in our society. In other words, it’s an act of display magic by the local witch doctor, only much less useful.

And the followers are experiencing the desired emotional catharsis..

Yes, there are issues around smoke-free workplaces. I do believe all workplaces should be smoke-free. However, prisons are not ordinary work environments, but also living environments for people who have no control over their circumstances. Furthermore, the range of solutions is not a choice between “free-for-all” and “total immediate ban”.

It’s horrible policy, poorly implemented, and it will cause people to suffer while improving precisely nothing except this government’s image as “tough on criminals”.

But more than that, it’s just a small, petty, vindictive policy. It deserves to be thoroughly shredded by an active, querying media and a determined opposition. It won’t be, because NZ doesn’t have either of those things.

(The only academic treatment on the subject I can find is this article – the extract doesn’t say anything useful and my library doesn’t have access to the full text, can anyone see what it says?)

Of Tax Rates and Bob

This post would be much better if I actually had the numbers it needs. But I’m posting it anyway, because I’m not afraid to look like an idiot on the internets.

This story from Radio NZ was mentioned on the radio news as I was waking up this morning. It included a quote from Roger Douglas, from the economic-uberliberal ACT party. I can’t recall the numbers he cited (can anyone find ’em? I just listened to another news broadcast and they didn’t repeat this story) but it was along the lines of “the top (small)% of earners pay (much bigger)% of the tax”.

Keep that in mind and review this graph from No Right Turn, that shows almost half the wealth of NZ is concentrated in just 10% of the population:

This makes clear that Douglas is keeping the other half of the equation covered. With such great wealth concentration, it doesn’t seem nearly so problematic that there’s tax concentration. In fact, isn’t tax concentration exactly what we should expect from a well-functioning system?

And as a complete aside, I love the saga of Bob, the limited-English Chinese youth who ran away from home and slept rough in Otara – the roughest, toughest, scariest-to-us-white-folks place in NZ – where he was befriended by a Samoan youth and taken in by that family. And they decided to call him Bob.

Faleto’a, who already has seven sons, welcomed him into her family. “This is my beloved son Bob,” she told Campbell Live. “I love him just the same as my boys.”

This, when tensions between Asian and Pasifika ethnic groups in Auckland are rising. It’s just a good reminder that people are basically awesome.