The Contest Begins

The contest for the future leader of the NZ Labour Party has begun with Shane Jones, Grant Robertson and David Cunliffe tossing their hats into the ring. David Cunliffe has a reputation for not getting on with all his colleagues, but he says he is a changed man after spending time on the Back Benches of the NZ Parliament - as punishment for being implicated in the undermining of David Shearer from the day he was elected as leader instead of him.

Cunliffe Makes His Move

An Email To "Afternoons At Radio NZ

Hi Jim, Jo Bennett set off quite a debate about his views on extreme differences in pay rates and it continued with more discussion about whether large differences in pay rates are well deserved and a necessary driver to get better performance out of an economy.

My contribution to this debate would be to to tell you about behavioural research with social primates that I read about. It showed that when unequal rewards were given to individuals asked to do similar tasks in full view of the others, the least and the most rewarded performed the worst. When the rewards became more even, their performances improved.

Similar research was done in a later study with humans and much the same thing happened. It seems to me that initial satisfaction of the over-rewarded was followed soon by guilt and and anxiety which affected their performance. Resentment dampened the enthusiasm of the under rewarded. 

Apparently, when the rewards in both studies became more equal, the performances improved  across all the groups. It seems to me that social primates and humans accept some inequality quite happily, but become agitated and stress out when it becomes extreme. 

When the levels of reward for work were more even in Post War NZ, I too remember a country that was less stressful in many ways and more prosperous relative to other countries at that time. Today we appear to be suffering the effects of accepting a more unequal society . 

In my opinion we are slowly losing our ranking in many ways relative to other nations because of this. My solutions would begin by restoring what worked in Post War NZ economically and keep the hugely beneficial social reforms since then. We can even use small parts of Rogernomics, that we like and work for us. The big question is, have we got the guts to stop the rot and demand change for a more equal income distribution from our Government or will it take more social problems, severe recessions, depressions and wars to inflict enough pain for us to sort our problems as a nation?

King Billy

This is the start of a new venture. I am now illustrating Paul Campbell's column about Billy The Sheep Dog - a light hearted perspective on life on a NZ farm from a dog's point of view. It is appearing in the Kaipara Lifestyler and associated rural papers in  Northland, Waikato, Taranaki and Canterbury, published by North South Media, based in Dargaville.

In the first cartoon, Billy is dreaming about Kate and William's royal baby in the UK and imagining himself as a top dog with lots of royal puppies. The second cartoon has Billy giving advice to Peri Weepu after Peri missed out on All Black selection. The can in Billy's mouth is from a brand that featured in the massively overblown concern about the possibility of contamination by microbes causing botulism sourced from one of Fonterra's milk processing plants. The media kicked this issue around and badly dented Fonterra's reputation.
Click on the cartoon to enlarge

Budget Blustering

When a country like New Zealand has a sluggish economy, it is usually a golden opportunity for Opposition Politicians to offer new solutions to voters. However, very little came from the Labour Party in this regard after the National Government presented its Budget to Parliament this month - either in the way of effective criticism or alternatives. This probably demonstrates, to my mind at least, how very similar their policies  are to National's. 

The Greens have plenty of ideas, but they seem to be trying very hard to get co-operation with Labour and it has sadly meant that their voice seems to be somewhat muted. NZ First has useful ideas too, but they get lost in the public perception of Winston Peter's personality.

There was a time when important issues such as continuing Trade Deficits and External Debt would drive an export policy, as it does in Asia. Unfortunately, the National Government prefers to sell State Assets and consume the future prosperity for most New Zealanders. What we have been presented with, is a bunch of policies that do nothing to stop the Trade Deficit or the unsustainable housing bubble in Auckland spreading to the rest of the country and appearing to be an alternative to an actual economic recovery. 

The sad truth is, when the housing bubble pops, it will affect everybody - especially the productive economy and the growing numbers in the underclass of working poor and beneficiaries. What we surely need are fresh ideas gleaned from successful economies overseas and the courage to implement them. What we have are so many "Key Policies" that might be effectively pragmatic in the short term, but do nothing to get the economy going with real industrial and diversified agricultural growth. It is therefore not surprising at all that there are so few opportunities here in well paid productive enterprises, that many New Zealanders are finding emigration to Australia and elsewhere, irresistibly attractive.

Getting Hooked On Kaos

Altho' Auckland is already a poorly planned city, the NZ Government (Nick Smith) and Super City Council (Len Brown) seem determined to make things worse by accelerating the process of building huge numbers of houses without the supporting infrastructure such as roads, railways and social services  etc.

It certainly makes me wonder what sort of ideological drugs they on which makes the obvious appear unnecessary - like intelligent Town Planning and financial restraints on speculators and banks. I suppose they are still hooked on Monetarism. Where the real estate market is supposed to sort itself out with cycles of boom and bust and set the value of the biggest asset most people will ever own, by operating the city like a casino. 

Grog Shamed List MP Keeps His Seat