Watchblog

Crafar Farms Sale Approval Surprising Only In That It Took So Long To Rubberstamp

2012-01-28T14:07:00.000+13:00

The announcement yesterday of Ministerial and Overseas Investment Office approval of the sale of the bankrupt Crafar Farms to Chinese buyers is no surprise to the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA). The only surprise is that it took them so long to rubber stamp it. This was all supposed to be a done deal back in 2010 when it was supposed to be sold to the first lot of would be Chinese buyers. That all turned to custard because of an even greater of lack of good character than usual of the company’s principals, who are now facing serious criminal charges in Hong Kong (but nothing in New Zealand, which tells you a lot about the diligence of NZ’s “regulatory” authorities).
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Sale a “political hotpotato” prior to election

So it became not only an embarrassment but a political hot potato, one which exposed deep rifts within National’s supporters and within the Government itself, at the highest levels. It was parked up out of sight until after the election. But it has still taken a further two months to find the cans of air freshener with which to mask the stink of what is yet another huge sale overseas of New Zealand’s comparative advantage in the global market – prime agricultural land (of which they ain’t making no more).
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The lily is being gilded by the announcement that Landcorp will manage it on behalf of the Chinese buyers. Everyone knows that there is the world of difference between being the owner and the property manager. Ownership is power; owners make the decisions (including onselling it); owners get the profits. The lily is being further gilded by a number of conditions being attached to it (Labour set the precedent for this in regard to the equally controversial Shania Twain land purchases when it was in office). Conditions such as the buyers remaining of good character (this could be renamed the May Wang clause) and paying millions of dollars to various worthy causes. These should be taken with a well deserved grain of salt. Why? Two words – Kim Dotcom.

Prime Minister “disingenuous”

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The Prime Minister keeps issuing soothing noises about foreign land purchases only totaling around 1% of the total land area. He is being disingenuous. What is important is what percentage of the total area of productive land is foreign-owned. These statistics are no longer issued by the Overseas Investment Office but when they were, last decade, CAFCA calculated the figure at 7% - and it was never officially denied or disputed. We’ve seen no evidence of that figure having gone down, quite the opposite. Plus the PM is stressing quantity when, once again, the key factor is the quality of the land being flogged off overseas. Foreign buyers are cherry picking, not buying the rubbish (that’s left for the locals).
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CAFCA stresses that the race of the buyers is irrelevant. Flogging the Crafar Farms overseas is reprehensible regardless of whether the foreign buyers are Chinese, Americans, British or Australians. Despite attempts to reorient the economy into other directions (finance companies, anyone?), New Zealand still remains an agricultural country. And we’re very good at it, which is why foreign buyers want to snap it up. CAFCA doesn’t carry any flag for Michael Fay’s rival bid. All we need say about him is that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. The opportunity to have the Crafar Farms genuinely stay in local hands was lost when the receivers rejected Landcorp’s bid to buy them (which gets the management contract as a consolation prize). The Prime Minister said in 2010, when controversy was raging about the original Chinese proposal to buy these farms; that he didn't want to see New Zealanders become tenants in our own land. A commendable sentiment, one with which CAFCA completely agrees. But yesterday’s decision by his Government ensures that is exactly what is happening.
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Visit the "Save The Farms" webpage

No Corporate Welfare for Coca Cola and other Transnational Bludgers

2012-01-20T08:54:00.002+13:00

Speaking at the opening of Coca Cola Amatil’s Christchurch bottling plant, group managing director Terry Davis called on the Government to consider “incentives” for food and beverage manufacturers (Press, 19/1/12; “Coca-Cola calls for incentives”).
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Why? This is a very slippery slope. Why should the New Zealand taxpayer subsidise a gigantic transnational corporation such as Coca Cola, one for whom the $15m cost of the bottling plant would be what its American executives would refer to as “chump change”? Would they like breakfast in bed while they’re at it? And this is not even to raise the subject of whether Coca-Cola itself is a product worthy of any taxpayers’ dollars.
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.The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) says that it simply adds insult to injury for the transnational corporations which dominate the NZ economy to demand that the New Zealand people pay them for the privilege of profiting from us. But don’t take our word for it. A decade ago when the Labour government gave taxpayers’ money to giant American transnational EDS National’s associate commerce spokesman called it “corporate welfare” (Press, 12/3/03). And who was that then obscure National MP? None other than John Key. It’s a rare day when CAFCA agrees with National but Key expressed our views exactly.

The sugar daddy Prime Minister

and the squalidWarner Brothers/ “The Hobbit” saga

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Of course, once in power, Key became the transnationals’ biggest sugar daddy, as evidenced by the squalid Warner Brothers/ “The Hobbit” saga in 2010. What happened to calling it “corporate welfare”, Prime Minister?
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In the US, individual states, counties and cities undercut each other to attract foreign investment, such as car assembly plants, with guaranteed union-free workplaces. Some US states have paid transnational corporations (TNCs) hundreds of millions of dollars to pick them. “You want our foreign investment? OK, then you’ll have to pay us to come there. And pay again for us to stay".
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What are the N.Z. numbers?

Of all cities in New Zealand, Christchurch should be the one most wary of offering “incentives” to transnational corporations. In December 2002 Pratt and Whitney, a huge US transnational, announced an $80 million expansion of its Christchurch Airport jet engine testing centre; yet, by March 2003, Christchurch’s then Mayor, Garry Moore, announced that the centre would close and move overseas, with all jobs lost, unless the Council put up $20 million of ratepayers’ money. Sir Angus Tait, chairman of Tait Electronics, put it most succinctly when he said: " …One could, a little unkindly, interpret it as Air New Zealand and Pratt and Whitney putting a gun to the city’s head, saying ‘build this new building or we’ll go elsewhere’" (Press, 1/3/03).
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Ten Myths about Welfare

Don’t worry about the much maligned solo mothers and other beneficiaries who are regularly attacked and subjected to draconian measures. They’re not remotely in the same league. It’s the transnational corporations who are the country’s biggest bludgers. They suck billions of dollars in profits out of this country every year, so they can well afford to pay their own way (whatever happened to “market forces”?). If anything, they should be paying the NZ people for the privilege of being allowed to operate here.

Source: CAFCA Media Release

Download Original

Time for Government to get back into Insurance Business

2012-01-15T10:20:00.002+13:00

The Christchurch rebuild has been ground to ahalt by transnational insurance companies and their offshore reinsurers doingSFA

The Government announced this week that it has no plans to help Ansvar Insurance customers left in the lurch by their insurer’s December 31st exit from the New Zealand insurance market. That means that those unable to get new house insurance before their existing policies expire (January, in some cases) will be uninsured in further quakes and ineligible for Earthquake Commission support. And the insurance companies are not offering any new insurance coverage in Canterbury until further notice. So, this is an appalling situation for these people to be left in, through no fault of their own.
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Ansvar’s desertion follows December’s announcement that IAG is buying AMI Insurance’s “good business” but leaving the Crown to deal with AMI’s “bad business”, namely $1.8 billion of Canterbury earthquake claims. That is a perfect illustration of the phrase “to privatise the profits but socialise the losses”. So, a transnational corporation that is in the business of calculating risk, managing risk and profiting handsomely from risk, doesn’t want a bar of dealing with the negative consequences of that risk.
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Insurance market isbroken: “holding the country to ransom”

CAFCA had no objection – particularly as a Christchurch-based organisation - when the Government agreed to underwrite AMI, back in April, rather than see it go bust, as a number of smaller insurance companies had done as a direct result of the earthquakes. But it needed to go further than just underwriting AMI and then meekly taking on that company’s “bad business” while leaving IAG to laugh all the way to the foreign-owned bank.
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It is what the Government is not doing that is the problem. The Christchurch rebuild has been ground to a halt by transnational insurance companies and their offshore reinsurers doing SFA. This is nothing less than a capital strike by corporations that have creamed it big time for as long as Cantabrians, whether homeowners or businesses, have been paying insurance. Imagine the uproar if this was a labour strike. When you get prominent business mouthpieces urging the Government to step in because the insurance market is broken, and accusing the insurance companies of holding the country to ransom, you know that those companies have achieved the difficult task of pissing off everyone. Imagine what the Government would be doing if it was unions “holding the country to ransom”. But the Government is doing nothing, preferring to leave it to “the market” – which means stalemate. The widely backed call is for the Government to get back into insurance, to deal with problems that the private insurers can’t or won’t handle. After all that’s why State Insurance was founded – and that’s another example of a former public asset that was stupidly privatised (the name has been kept, because the word “State” gives credibility to a foreign-owned private insurance company).

Doing nothing, butleaving it to “the market”

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CAFCA backs the call for the Government to get back into the insurance business, as the insurer of last resort and to most effectively respond to an unprecedented catastrophe, made worse by the December quakes. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Government has equipped the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority with emergency powers – equally, it needs to wield some big stick in the insurance market.
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Source: CAFCA Media Release

Download in PDF

2011 Roger Award Finalists Named

2011-12-06T09:12:00.001+13:00

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The eight finalists for the 2011 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand are: Adidas, Newmont Waihi Gold, Oceania, New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ Ltd, Sajo Oyang Corporation, Sky City, Telecom and Westpac. There is one finalist for the Accomplice Award – the Government (in its own right and accompanying both Sajo Oyang and Telecom).

Get the details

The Neoliberal Coup D'Etat

2011-11-07T09:51:00.000+13:00

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The recently leaked regulatory coherence text from the TPPA negotiating round gives foreign corporations and powerful lobby groups the right to exert undue influence over New Zealand’s policy and regulatory decisions. Rights that New Zealand citizens would not have.
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“What is at stake’, NZ Not for Sale Campaign Patron, Bryan Gould, says “is our ability as a self-governing democracy to decide our own laws”
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If it’s any consolation we are not alone.
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Susan George, writing for the Transnational Institute notes that “Soon the neoliberal model will become irreversible...”
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“By a close vote on 28 September 2011, the European Parliament passed the Commission’s plan—a far-reaching takeover of individual countries’ capacity to set their own budgets and to manage their own sovereign debts.
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We’d recommend that you check this article out

The Spurious Case Against a Financial Transactions Tax

2011-11-04T10:47:00.000+13:00

With the European Commission seriously considering a tax on financial transactions - sometimes referred to as a “speculation tax”- its opponents are shifting their campaign into high gear. The predictions of disaster from the financial industry if the European Union chooses to implement it are, however, misguided.
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The opponents' claims go along three lines: the tax will not be enforceable; the tax will just be passed on to consumers and therefore will not be taking money from the intended targets in the financial industry; and finally, it will raise the cost of capital and therefore slow growth.
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Each of these objections is either altogether wrong or hugely exaggerated.

Checkout this article by Dean Baker and get the whole story
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Also well worth a quick browse is the Global Unions’ Statement to the G20 Summit

Click to read

Robin Hoods and Merry Bands

2011-10-27T16:42:00.001+13:00

From the folks who brought you Occupy Wall Street

Raise the Bar, Hershey!

2011-10-21T13:24:00.002+13:00

Stop Child & Forced Labour Cocoa Campaign
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Ten years after chocolate companies committed to ending child labour, forced labour, and trafficking in their cocoa supply chains, these egregious labour rights abuses continue. While many chocolate companies have taken steps to trace their cocoa purchasing and implement labour rights standards among their suppliers, the Hershey Company lags behind its competitors. Hershey has no policies in place to trace its cocoa and protect workers.
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With Halloween fast approaching the International Labor Rights Forum has teamed up with Change.org, an online platform for social change, to send targeted messages about Fair Trade to Hershey’s top executives, putting our total number of signers -- from multiple sites -- at over 100,000! But Hershey has yet to budge.

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Checkout the Real Corporate Social Responsibility Report for the Hershey Company
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Checkout the Cocoa Campaign webpage
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Send a letter to Hershey
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Send an email to Hershey
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Sign the petition to Hershey

Trans-Pacific Partnership Papers Remain Secret for Four Years after Deal

2011-10-17T08:11:00.000+13:00

Checkout the story
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Trade Deal Documents to be kept secret – Morning Report
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Occupied Wall Street Journal #1

2011-10-10T07:46:00.000+13:00

Occupied Wall Street Journal

Occupy Wall St. - Statement of the Participants

2011-10-07T14:10:00.000+13:00

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Statement issued by the Occupy Wall St. General Assembly meeting in Zuccotti Park.
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Train wreck at KiwiRail

2011-09-29T09:04:00.000+13:00

Behind the job losses

at Hillside and Woburn

The latest issue of the Transport Worker, the journal of the Rail and Maritime Union, carries an excellent article by Gordon Campbell on the decision, by KiwiRail, actively endorsed by the government, to build new rolling stock off-shore - a must read on a number of levels, include the astute observation that "where you have a CEO driven by a need for short term cost savings, this will generate decisions that often aren’t for the good of the company, the employees, the local community or the country as a whole”

You can download the Transport Worker here

Politicians who actually care

2011-09-22T14:28:00.006+12:00

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Congresswoman Linda Sanchez on Free Trade Agreements

Have you seen this awesome video of Representative Linda Sánchez throwing down the gauntlet against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)?

Given its election year, and with the lunacy of the Trans Pacific Partnership on the immediate horizon, you’d hope that similar voices would be raised in NZ –

There are things we can do – see below for details of the action YOU can take to stop the blinkered adherents of the demonstrably failed neoliberal ideology of ‘Free Trade’.

TAKE ACTION

Become active in the New Zealand Not for Sale Campaign
Visit the campaigns webpage
Checkout the backgrounders
Sign online or download the Statement of Sovereignty
Red Card the TPPA - Send your MP (and candidates) a postcard opposing the TPPA

Our democracy - Not for Sale

Our public health - Not for Sale

Our intellectual property - Not for Sale

Our sovereignty - Not for Sale

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Our children's future - Not for Sale

"Shock Doctrine" comes to the classroom

2011-09-11T15:10:00.000+12:00

"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform."

-- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times.

US journalist David Sirota, writing for Salon.com, describes how corporate reformers are using the fiscal crisis to hype an unproven school reforms ...

"The Shock Doctrine, as articulated by journalist Naomi Klein, describes the process by which corporate interests use catastrophes as instruments to maximize their profit. Sometimes the events they use are natural (earthquakes), sometimes they are human-created (the 9/11 attacks) and sometimes they are a bit of both (hurricanes made stronger by human-intensified global climate change). Regardless of the particular cataclysm, though, the Shock Doctrine suggests that in the aftermath of a calamity, there is always corporate method in the smoldering madness - a method based in Disaster Capitalism."

Read the rest

On the local scene checkout

NZEI Campaigns page

The National Standards Campaign

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False Claims versus Hard Realities

2011-09-08T08:35:00.000+12:00

The Pending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement:

Distinguishing between fact and fiction

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With a little more than a year till the 2012 elections the White House and Congressional leadership are anxious to pass pending Free Trade Agreements (FTA) as soon as possible.

Most worrisome of all is the pending FTA between the US and Colombia. Corporate leaders and U.S. and Colombian government officials with their public relations operatives are peddling lie after lie to justify passage.

The Alliance for Global Justice has put together a guide to help people better understand and counter the falsehoods they will be hearing and countering in the coming weeks.

The fight against the neoliberal economic agenda is indeed universal and this article is will worth checking out.

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Labour Day Rally in Chicago Kicks off Challenge to TPPA Negotiating Round

2011-09-07T08:20:00.002+12:00

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A rally of around a thousand unionists, HIV-Aids activists and social justice campaigners in Chicago sent a clear message to negotiators the day before the latest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations began in Chicago.

Addressing the crowd, Chicago-based civil rights leader Jessie Jackson urged President Obama to address the problems of jobs and problems of poverty. That would not be delivered through more free trade deals on the NAFTA model that had only benefited the powerful corporations.

Proving that not all businesses support the corporate lobbies’ demands for the TPPA, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream called for trade agreements to be based on social justice and ethical business practices.

‘We want an agreement that puts people first and makes global trade an instrument of justice’, Cohen said.

Buying milk from their ice cream from local farmers was part of their commitment to the communities that bought their products. Fonterra’s ambitions to export more milk powder to the US when there was already a surplus of local made no sense.

The two iconic business leaders personally distributed free ice cream at the end of the rally.

The rally launches a series of activities over the coming week that are designed to highlight the impacts a TPPA could have on jobs, economic recovery, public health and democracy.

Also see

> Labor unions rally at Grant Park
> Labor Day Rally Draws Out Hundreds Calling For Fair Trade Agreement

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Other People's Wars: New Zealand in Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terror

2011-09-01T17:29:00.001+12:00

'We got ourselves into habit of saying, "Hmm, what's New Zealand's view?

OK, the first thing we do is ask the Americans, we ask the Canadians,

we ask the Brits, we ask the Australians," and when we've

got all their views we synthesise them into our own view'

-former New Zealand diplomat

The 'war on terror' in Afghanistan and beyond has been the longest foreign war in New Zealand history, yet most New Zealanders know almost nothing about their country's part in it. For ten years, nearly everything controversial or potentially unpopular was kept secret, and obscured by a steady flow of military public relations stories.

Based on thousands of leaked New Zealand military and intelligence documents, extensive interviews with military and intelligence officers and eye-witness accounts from the soldiers on the ground, Nicky Hager tells the story of these years. New Zealand was far more involved than the public realised in this crucial period of world history. He tells how the military and bureaucracy used the war on terror to pursue private agendas, even when this meant misleading and ignoring the decisions of the elected government.
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Read Press Release

Visit Craig Potton Publishing

Nicky Hager - Other People's Wars Book Launch Video

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Kim Hill interviews Nicky Hager

Standard & Poor's Getting Heat for Downgrade Decision.

2011-08-27T10:44:00.000+12:00

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According to a Reuters report, the Securities and Exchange Commission is “reviewing” the decision of rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the federal government’s credit rating.

The decision to issue a downgrade—despite the fact that interest rates for US Treasury bonds remain at near-historic lows, and a lack of any evidence the country won’t be able to honor its obligations—has already been criticized by several powerful Washington players. Senator Tim Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, blasted the decision last week in a statement. “In the minds of serious, reasonable, and informed individuals there is no doubt that the US will meet its debt,” he said. “I am deeply disappointed in S&P’s decision to enter into the game of political punditry.”

An aide told me the Banking Committee is “looking into the issue and gathering information.”

The SEC’s review is made possible by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which gave the agency expanded power to review the actions of rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s. The SEC cannot second-guess a rating decision outright, but can, however, make sure the issuing agency followed its own guidelines.

The current review into the downgrade decision is focused on Standard & Poor’s transparency rules, according to one Reuter’s source—whether, for example, the Standard & Poor’s committee held the necessary meetings on the decision. Given the very curious nature of the downgrade, it will be interesting to see if Standard & Poor’s complied with transparency rules in making it.

The SEC is also already undergoing a broader examination of all rating agencies, as required by the Dodd-Frank reforms. The agency will issue that report sometime in December. It has already removed references to the opinion of private rating agencies from federal guidelines, and created a separate metric for evaluating investments that could be used as an alternative to the current rating agencies.

If Standard & Poor’s was motivated to issue their downgrade as an assertion of power against increasing regulation, the SEC review would indicate the government is not cowed.

An alternate, or perhaps complimentary, theory of Standard & Poor’s downgrade decision is that the agency was trying to appear tough after having endorsed the mortgage-backed securities that eventually destroyed the economy. Last week, University of Massachusetts professor Robert Pollin told me that perhaps Standard & Poor’s was trying to create the impression that “they’re hardnosed, they’re courageous; this is their best objective analysis. All of a sudden, after being shill for the financial bubble, they’re going to be hard-nosed.” He added that perhaps Standard & Poor’s was trying to appear more decisive than the other two rating agencies, Fitch and Moody’s.

If that was indeed the strategy, it too may be backfiring. Amidst SEC and Senate “reviews,” and harsh comments from other prominent politicians about Standard & Poor’s, the rival agency Fitch announced this morning it is reaffirming the United States’ AAA rating and said it doesn’t anticipate downgrade.

Source

ALSO SEE

S&P 'likely' to cut Telecom credit rating

Did Standard & Poor Downgrade US Debt to Help Crush Social Security and Medicare?

Fishing inquiry must shine a light into dark places

2011-08-23T22:58:00.001+12:00

"We want to have the fishing and processing
done by New Zealand operators employing
New Zealand workers on decent wages and
conditions” MUNZ General Secretary Joe Fleetwood

The Maritime Union of New Zealand has welcomed today's announcement by the Government of the terms of reference and panel for an official and wide ranging inquiry into foreign owned vessels in the fishing industry.

Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says the Government's objectives sound good on paper, but the Union wants real answers.

"Enforceable rules and regulations for labour standards, and the need for New Zealand to benefit from our own resources, including jobs, are the big issues. This inquiry will need to shine a light into dark places."

"This inquiry is long overdue and the Maritime Union have been calling for one for many years. But we know in advance that this inquiry will confirm what we already know, that disgraceful practices have become the norm and accepted by the industry."

This has caused great harm, says Mr Fleetwood.

He says in 2006 new regulations were brought in to tighten up the rules around overseas crews on joint venture vessels, but the inquiry was effectively an admission that previous efforts had not cleaned up the industry.

"This is a problem that has been allowed to grow and grow for decades."

Mr Fleetwood says the Maritime Union's goal for the fishing industry was simple.

"We want to have the fishing and processing done by New Zealand operators employing New Zealand workers on decent wages and conditions. We want the phase out of joint ventures. They've been a failure, that has resulted in New Zealand being identified internationally as a place where disgraceful practices are condoned."

"If overseas crews are phased out, the abuse, exploitation and underpayment will be solved."

Mr Fleetwood says the Maritime Union would be working with other bona fide unions and the International Transport Workers' Federation to discuss ways to organize local and international labour in the industry.

Download the Inquiry Terms of Reference

"Not in New Zealand´s waters, surely?

Labour and human rights abuses aboard foreign fishing vessels"

Download

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Read to story Stuff, NZH

Productivity Commission Report ‘a dishonest document’

2011-07-27T16:47:00.000+12:00

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Something called the productivity commission has put out a report advocating changes to the way New Zealand’s ports and airports are operated.

It’s a dishonest document.

Although it says that our ports need a big shake-up, the report admits that it hasn’t done any research to back up its stand.

It says it’s all about efficiency and productivity, but the commission gives no evidence of inefficiency. That’s because the real purpose of the exercise has to be hidden. It’s about putting privatization of our ports and airports on the agenda.

Instead of facts based on observation, the report asks a lot of leading questions. They’re phrased in a code which its ‘free trading’ mates can translate.

There are 88 pages of questions. They boil down to:

Are present labour practices inflexible? In other words, say yes. Get rid of any union presence in our ports and casualize labour.

Is the present public ownership of ports efficient? As it stands, councils have to consider four outcomes. These are economic, environmental, social and cultural. But exporters and importers need to move products as quickly and cheaply as possible. So should owners of ports have to worry about that environmental, social and cultural stuff?

That’s a no.

Are there too many ports now?

That’s a yes. The answer will be to have one big hub port, probably either Auckland or Tauranga, and not fuss about the rest.

Would one vertically integrated operation work better than the present mass of small, competing ports and competing owners? How can we compete on the global market, where costs are cut relentlessly?

That answer’s obvious. By selling public ownership to one big outfit to run the whole show, from farm gate to consumer.

That’ll almost certainly be a big foreign transnational with no mandate to worry about exploitative labour practices, dangerous traffic movements, vibration, noise - or any of the potential hazards of transport - with no checks by New Zealand authorities.

The report is meant to grease the way to privatizing our ports and abandoning the ones the foreign masters don’t think will make them enough bucks.

That’s why the language is coded. The government has no mandate to sell off more public assets. There’s no demand to send even more of our wealth offshore. New Zealanders don’t support closing down regional ports or using our ports and airports to boost profits for foreign corporations.

It’s not just transport that’ll be affected. If this so-called productivity and efficency is enacted, we can say goodbye to more of our ability to clean our environment through socially responsive planning to create greener transport or well-planned coastal towns. It’ll be us versus them.

Housing affordability Report

Download

International freight transport services Report

Download

> Productivity Commission webpage

> Register to receive Productivity Commission Update

Some Background
>Maritime Union has strong views on transport productivity inquiry
>It's our port - and that's how we like it
>NZ Productivity Commission questions port ownership in NZ
>Productivity Commission inquiry topics announced (Govt)
>Commission to put ports ownership under spotlight

Embattled Colombian Unionists Rally Against ‘Free Trade’

2011-07-15T10:08:00.000+12:00

Gathering with fellow unionists in Washington, D.C., Jose Hugo Yanini speaks firmly about labor rights in Colombia. But a few weeks ago, the industrial janitor and shop steward feared that he soon might never utter another word.

Yanini, who is campaigning with SEIU and other groups against the pending U.S.-Colombia trade agreement, is a typical target in his home country. Last month, on his way home from collective bargaining talks, labor activists report, he got the anonymous phone message that every Colombian union activist dreads: "Tell that man that he should be careful with his tongue or we will cut it out."

So far, the case hasn't been fully investigated and the public doesn't know who was behind the menacing call. But people do know Yanini's boss: the multinational company Sodexo, a major provider of food and custodial services in the U.S. and other countries, and a notorious union-buster at home and abroad.

What brought Yanini and other Colombian unionists to Washington is a simple demand that the U.S. simply not continue to do business with a country where speaking out for labor rights can be a death sentence.

Read the rest
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Workers’ rights, not corporate rights

2011-07-08T12:39:00.000+12:00

Download the flyer (pdf)

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Resisting the race to the bottom on working conditions

The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET), an network of unions, church, environment, health and other community groups, has produced a flyer addressing the issue for workers arising from free trade agreements

“Trade agreements should” the flyer reads “be underpinned by enforceable commitments to basic labour rights as agreed by most governments through the United Nations International Labour Organisation.”

“We want governments in the Trans-Pacific trade agreement to commit to enforce these rights, including freedom to join unions, the right to collective bargaining, no forced labour, no child labour and no discrimination in the workplace”.

Without implementation of basic rights at work, free trade agreements can lead to a race to the bottom on working conditions.
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Tobacco Firm Sues Australia over Plain Packaging

2011-06-27T22:06:00.000+12:00

Confirms Risks of TransPacific Partnership Deal

‘Philip Morris has found a backdoor

route to protect its profits.’

Tobacco giant Philip Morris announced today that it will use a foreign investment treaty to sue the Australian government for introducing plain packaging tobacco laws.

‘This is exactly what we have been warning could happen if US firms are given powers to sue the government under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,’ said Professor Jane Kelsey of the University of Auckland Law School.

‘Indeed, this case shows the risks already exist. The Howard Government rejected the inclusion of investor-enforcement powers in the Australia US Free Trade Agreement in 2005. The Australian Labor Government is committed to rejecting similar powers in the TPPA. But Philip Morris has found a back door route to protect its profits.’

Philip Morris is a US company. In a classic exercise of treaty shopping, it is using an obscure Bilateral investment Treaty that Australia signed with Hong Kong in 1991 to bring the case in an offshore international tribunal and seek billions of dollars in compensation for lost revenues.

New Zealand has a similar bilateral investment treaty with Hong Kong that was signed in 1995. Ironically, submissions on updating that as part of the New Zealand Hong Kong free trade agreement close on 30 June.

A classic exercise of treaty shopping
‘clearly not enough to stop these powers being
included in a TPPA. All New Zealand’s trade
and investment agreements that have investor-state
enforcement powers need to be revisited’

‘The champions of these agreements dismiss concerns that they could be used to challenge public policies that are in the national interest, such as tobacco controls, offshore mining regulation or stricter telecommunications laws.’

‘They have claimed that there isn’t a problem because similar powers exist in some of our other agreements, and have never been used against us – like our 1995 agreement with Hong Kong.’

‘This development should send shock waves through the Parliament, local government and ordinary citizens’, warned Professor Kelsey.

‘It’s clearly not enough to stop these powers being included in a TPPA. All New Zealand’s trade and investment agreements that have investor-state enforcement powers need to be revisited as well.’

Text from Media Release from Jane Kelsey

Salvadoran Activist Killed After Protesting Mining Project

2011-06-27T15:37:00.000+12:00

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An update, from Democracy Now, on the struggle against mining in El Salvador where an environmental activist has been killed after speaking out against a mining project in a northern region.

Juan Francisco Duran Ayala is the latest in a string of activists to be killed after denouncing the Canadian gold mining company, Pacific Rim, in its efforts to mine the area of Cabañas. A community youth radio station, Radio Victoria, has also received repeated death threats for covering the story. Lisa Fuller represents the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

Corporatism Dominates US Diplomacy

2011-06-24T10:50:00.000+12:00

One of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy.

One of the most significant scourges paralyzing US democracy is the merger of corporate power with elected and appointed government officials at the highest levels of office. Influence has a steep price-tag in American politics where politicians are bought and paid for with ever increasing campaign contributions from big business, essentially drowning out any and all voices advocating on behalf of the public interest.

Millions of dollars in campaign funding flooding Washington's halls of power combined with tens of thousands of high-paid corporate lobbyists and a never-ending revolving door that allows corporate executives to shuffle between the public and private sectors has blurred the line between government agencies and private corporations.

This corporate dominance over government affairs helps to explain why we are plagued by a health-care system that lines the pockets of industry executives to the detriment of the sick; a war industry that causes insurmountable death and destruction to enrich weapons-makers and defense contractors; and a financial sector that violates the working class and poor to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses to Wall Street CEO's.

Checkout the whole story:
.

5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad

Source AlterNet

John’s Garage Sale

2011-05-23T10:54:00.002+12:00

Selling Out,

Everything Must Go!

click here for more information

Walmart – a Life or Death Matter

2011-05-20T10:00:00.000+12:00

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In the next few weeks, the Walmart Corporation will help decide if three activists live or die.

A message from the

International Labor Rights Forum

See, Walmart relies on cheap subcontractors across the developing world, many of which force workers to toil in unimaginable conditions.

Three Bangladeshis, Kalpona Akter (pictured at right), Babul Akhter, and Aminul Islam, had been fighting to help the workers at some suppliers in their country.

Rather than treat workers fairly, these suppliers have filed false criminal charges against the trio.

The accusations are demonstrably false. For example, the supplier claims that Kalpona and Babul destroyed property on a day when multiple witnesses saw them at a meeting 35 kilometres away.

But so far, that hasn’t mattered. Kalpona, Babul, and Aminul were imprisoned and tortured for their activism. They now await a sham of a trial that can begin as soon as June 1st. If it doesn’t go well, they could be sentenced to death.

If Walmart demands that the suppliers drop the charges, the activists will likely go free. But there are only two weeks until the window for intervention closes.

Let’s create a huge uproar that shows Walmart executives that customers around the globe are watching their decision.

Please sign the petition calling on them to demand that false charges be dropped immediately:

Thanks for taking action,

- Patrick and the Change.org team

VISIT
> International Labor Rights Forum
> Labor is Not a Commodity

Looters Stay Away

2011-05-02T17:48:00.000+12:00

‘legal loophole’ would be the single
biggest instance of earthquake-related
looting yet seen

NO SELLOFF OF CHRISTCHURCH’S PUBLICLY-OWNED ASSETS!

The revelation that all of Christchurch’s publicly-owned trading assets could be in danger of being sold due to a “legal loophole” in the law establishing the new State authority to run the city whilst it is rebuilt after the earthquakes should set alarm bells ringing loudly. If that comes to pass, it would be the single biggest instance of earthquake-related looting yet seen. American writer Naomi Klein coined the phrase “disaster capitalism” in the wake of the Bush Administration’s criminally negligent response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina catastrophe in New Orleans, where Big Business and its political mouthpieces used the situation as an excuse for an orgy of corporatisation and privatisation. If such disaster capitalism is inflicted on Christchurch, that will be the “third big one” to slam into the city. And it will be the one with the most long term destructive effects.

" flogging off Christchurch’s assets sounds
like a routine prescription from Dr Brash"

Of course, Government Ministers have said that there is no such intention. The value of a politician’s solemn vow can be gauged from those Act MPs who only days ago publicly declared that Rodney Hide had their undying support as leader. Truth is an elastic concept in politics. And flogging off Christchurch’s assets sounds like a routine prescription from Dr Brash, Act’s new leader and coupmaster. There’s no secret about where he stands on the subject of public assets. And Brash’s ideological soulmate, the Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr, has already called for the sale of all or some of Christchurch’s assets to pay for the rebuild. CAFCA is sure that it’s purely coincidental that any that were sold would just happen to fall into the hands of the very same transnational corporations that make up a large part of the Business Roundtable. Ever since it branded Christchurch the “People’s Republic of Christchurch” for having the temerity to hang onto its publicly-owned assets (in social housing alone, the Christchurch City Council is the country’s second biggest landlord, after the State) the Business Roundtable and its political mouthpieces has wanted an example made of the city and its assets flogged off.

" crack down hard on transnational corporate
tax dodgers who suck extortionate profits out
of the country whilst not paying their fair share"

If central or local government is foolish enough to try to go down this path, they will be buying a fight. In 2006 the City Council came a spectacular gutser when public opposition and a shrewd strategic intervention by the Port of Otago thwarted its cunning plan to hock off the Lyttelton Port Company to a Hong Kong transnational corporation.

And if Ministers want ideas on how to finance the massive rebuild, start by implementing the proposal to slap a small earthquake recovery levy on higher income earners. Reverse the tax cuts that were a blatant hand out to the rich. And crack down hard on transnational corporate tax dodgers who suck extortionate profits out of the country whilst not paying their fair share (the likes of the Big Four Australian-owned banks who settled with IRD in December 2009 for $2.2 billion, the biggest tax avoidance case in NZ’s history). There’s no shortage of money in the country – it’s just a question of who has got it, and of ensuring that it stays here to be used for the public benefit.

CAFCA Media Release, Murray Horton. Secretary/Organiser

Unions call for labour-friendly FTA’s

2011-04-19T16:00:00.004+12:00

South Korean and New Zealand union centres oppose Korea-New Zealand free trade agreement and call for new model


“ trade rules should not undermine public health and safety, workers' rights, the environment, essential public services and fair economic development in order to protect the rights of corporations”

The Korean Council of Trade Unions, representing 800,000 members and 25 million workers in South Korea, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions representing 350,000 workers in New Zealand are calling on their governments to thoroughly review their approaches to the proposed trade and investment agreement and to create a new model of trade agreements between their countries.

In a joint declaration released today, Presidents Kim Young-Hoon and Helen Kelly say that the governments “should work to create a labour-friendly model of trade and economic cooperation through adequate consultations with labour unions and civil society groups”.

Click to visit

In the declaration, the peak union organisations call for a moratorium in their negotiations for a free trade and investment agreement between the two countries.

The declaration states: “If our concerns are not addressed we will strongly oppose the continued negotiation of the Korea – New Zealand FTA and will work together to ensure that this agreement is not implemented.”

Click to visit

The declaration outlines the concerns of the two movements with the model of trade agreement that is being proposed. It says that “trade rules should not undermine public health and safety, workers' rights, the environment, essential public services and fair economic development in order to protect the rights of corporations. And such an agreement should support the creation and preservation of full employment and good jobs in both countries, and protect and enhance labour rights. Both governments should undertake changes needed to ensure that all workers in both countries are afforded their fundamental labour rights including rights to organise and to bargain collectively, and that those rights are progressively enhanced.”

The Presidents say “The agreement must include a strong and enforceable labour chapter. Both this and a strong and enforceable environment chapter should have primacy over economic and commercial provisions of the agreement.”

“Negotiations towards a fairer and more just trade and economic cooperation process must be carried out with much greater openness, including regular releases of draft text, continuing consultation with unions and other affected groups including provision for their attendance at negotiating rounds, and processes in each country which allow citizens and their elected representatives an effective voice in the decision on final acceptance.” said the Presidents.

The joint declaration can be found here

The challenge of Free Trade Agreements in Asia : A roundtable discussion

2011-04-18T10:59:00.000+12:00

Despite the ongoing multiple crises of employment, food, finance, energy and climate, most Governments have not eschewed trade liberalisation. Due to an interplay between geo-politics and the rise of emerging economic powers and their multinational corporations, Asian countries have set aside the WTO Doha Round failure and have preferred to engage in a complicated web of ambitious bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The rapid spread of FTAs in Asia has made it the global hub for trade liberalisation. As of February 2011, the region has some 63 concluded FTAs with several more under various stages of negotiation.

Asian civil society groups have also been in the vanguard; doing research, campaign and advocacy in critiquing the lack of transparency and anti-development nature of these trade and investments treaties.

This roundtable organised by Focus on the Global South brought together academicians, researchers and activists ( including two parliamentarians from South East Asia) to discuss the state of play, share updates on national level campaigns and discuss issues of mutual collaboration. Issues addressed include employment, finance, agriculture and access to affordable medicines and health care.

Download the Report Summary

How 12 Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes

2011-04-15T15:38:00.000+12:00

A new report shows how some of the world's biggest companies pay nothing to the (US) IRS through lobbying and loopholes.

“Over the past month, General Electric has been held up as the pinnacle of corporate vampirism –– the world’s largest corporation in the world’s lowest tax bracket. But it’s not just GE that’s bilking the system and paying zero dollars in taxes.

A new report out today illustrates that at least 11 other multinational, billion-dollar corporations managed to get a free pass from the IRS – and not only that, but while average Americans scraped their piggy banks to pay hefty taxes on paltry paychecks, many of these companies actually got a refund. Want to know how they pulled that off? By the fatcat’s swindle: lobbying, campaign contributions, and other legal gladhanding that helps them exploit corporate loopholes and keeps their pockets flush while the rest of us struggle to get by.

The campaign reform group Public Campaign has released a report called "Artful Dodgers," identifying 12 corporations – including GE – that used these tactics to avoid paying any taxes while reaping huge benefits. More disturbingly, the report notes they collectively spent over a billion dollars influencing politicians to make Washington more corporate-friendly. As the report points out, the money invested to sway groups such as the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee has been wildly successful. Legislation from both parties has created these tax loopholes, while providing incentives that effectively destroy the American workforce.”

Read complete article at AlterNet

Checkout the report Artful Dodgers

Government Leadership Lacking on Kiwirail Procurement

2011-04-15T09:54:00.001+12:00

Rail manufacturing workers say KiwiRail procurement decisions are too important to the local economy for the Transport Minister and Prime Minister to wash their hands of them.

An announcement from KiwiRail’s on the successful bidder for the $500 million purchase of 38 three-car electric multiple units and 13 locomotives for the Auckland rail network is very close, it was noted in Parliament’s Question Time.

Rail and Maritime Transport Union General Secretary Wayne Butson said that several KiwiRail purchasing decisions had gone against the local workforce, and it was time for government to require stronger local content provisions from KiwiRail’s procurement programme.

“Rail workers were gutted when KiwiRail announced last May that New Zealand workshops would not be building the Electric Multiple Units for Auckland.”

“This was despite a comprehensive BERL report for Chambers of Commerce, unions and local government, proving the case for a local build,” he said.

An investment of $8.5 million in Kiwirail’s workshops
– a quarter of the Warner Brothers handout – could
have added $250 million to GDP and created 1,270
full-time equivalent jobs.

“This followed 20 Diesel Locomotives for the North Island being built in China, and making matters worse, the job for 300 new container flat top wagons last December also went to an overseas firm.”

“When Steven Joyce rejected the BERL report on the Close Up programme last year, he held out hope that the 300 wagons would be built locally.”

The Minister said: ‘There will be lots of work for these guys, there’s no doubt about that, because they do a lot of things well and there’s a big rolling stock replenishment and replacement exercise that’s coming down the pipeline (Steven Joyce, Close Up, May 3 2010)’

“Despite this, the job went overseas, just like the Electric Multiple Units. Steven Joyce’s reassurances became worthless to the Dunedin and Lower Hutt workforce,” Wayne Butson said.

“It’s not good enough for Steven Joyce and John Key to wash their hands of these decisions. They do have options open to them. As KiwiRail’s shareholders, they need to put in place stronger local procurement requirements. Without them we will see more decisions that go against local workers, local industry development, and the export potential that that involves.”

Wayne Butson said in relation to Auckland’s Electric Multiple Units, the RMTU would be watching very closely to see whether KiwiRail honoured the local involvement pledge it made during the tender process.

KiwiRail’s May 2010 tender document encouraged firms to ally themselves with New Zealand subcontractors or suppliers and “include as much New Zealand content and resources in the design, construction, delivery, testing, maintenance and support of the EMUs as is appropriate.”

“We have always wanted these trains to be built in Dunedin and Lower Hutt but local involvement provisions from the lead supplier was the next best option. It is essential that this is rigorously pursued by KiwiRail,” he said.

Rail & Maritime Transport Union Campaign Page

US about to conclude “shameful deal’ with Colombia

2011-04-08T09:33:00.000+12:00

It’s official. President Obama has betrayed his fair trade campaign promises. Today Obama and Colombian President Santos will announce a sham “deal” on labor rights issues as political cover to jumpstart a NAFTA-type trade deal with Colombia — the union-murder capitol of the world. Yes. The same outrageous deal Obama opposed as a candidate.

You can get information about

Colombian political prisoners here

With this shameful “deal,” Obama aims to serve up a triple dose of Bush NAFTA expansion poison: a deadly Colombia-Korea-Panama NAFTA expansion. The disgusting Colombia deal is a slap in the face of organized labor and its supporters, already fuming about Obama pushing Bush’s job-offshoring Korea trade deal to a vote soon. Just last year, 51 Colombian unionists were assassinated for exercising their basic human rights — more than in the rest of the world combined. Working families won’t stand for this sort of betrayal.

But it’s not only the unionists being targeted and murdered. Afro- and indigenous-Colombians leaders are also under fire. As under NAFTA, which has been shown to have displaced roughly 2.5 million rural Mexican campesinos, their communities will suffer under the trade deal. With nearly 4 million already displaced by armed groups and elite landowners, the Colombia trade deal is a human rights nightmare.

From an email received this morning from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

Postscript (we also received this today)

Bogotá, Colombia, April 7, 2011 - Confidential internal memos from Chiquita Brands International reveal that the banana giant benefited from its payments to Colombian paramilitary and guerrilla groups, contradicting the company's 2007 plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors, which claimed that the company had never received "any actual security services or actual security equipment in exchange for the payments." Chiquita had characterized the payments as "extortion."

Click here to see the paperwork

Roger Award winners announced

2011-04-04T20:20:00.003+12:00

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Triple sweep for the film industry:

The Roger, the Accomplice and the Quisling

Warner Brothers wins

BUPA 2nd; Imperial Tobacco 3rd

John Key & his government winner of Accomplice Award

Peter Jackson wins quisling award

The film industry made a clean sweet at the prestigious Roger Award Ceremony held earlier this evening in Auckland clearing out the trophy cabinet by grabbing both the Roger Award and Accomplice Award and picking up the new Quisling category.

Warner Brothers was a first time nominee. The Judges’ Statement says that: ''The ‘Hobbit’ affair was an extraordinary example of transnational capital interfering in local politics, and overtly influencing the actions of the NZ Government (which richly deserves its Accomplice Award). It was an overt display of bullying that humiliated every New Zealander, and deliberately set out to do that… such interference in New Zealand politics sets a precedent for all future negotiations between the New Zealand government and transnational corporations”. It won because of its interference in NZ politics and governance and treatment of employees and contractors.

Hobbit affair: An overt display of bullying that...
sets a precedent for all future negotiations
between the New Zealand government and
transnational corporations”.

BUPA (which is the second biggest retirement home chain in NZ) came second “primarily because of its poor treatment of both its staff and its clients” (one of whom, a 100 year old woman, died after suffereing considerably for several months from misdiagnosed and untreated scabies). Imperial Tobacco came third, not only for selling a product which kills and addicts its users, but because of its role in setting up a fake citizens’ organisation to lobby for its product, a tactic which the judges described as “despicable and deceitful”.

John Key and his Government won the Accomplice Award for their ignoble role in the whole Warner Brothers/”Hobbit” affair. “It has apparently given rise to a whole new men’s fashion garment in Hollywood – Warners of Wellington trousers. They have an arrow printed on the seat, and the words ‘kiss here’”.

The judges announced a special Quisling Award for Sir Peter Jackson (to be awarded to the individual New Zealander who does the most to facilitate foreign control of New Zealand), once again for his role in the Warner Brothers/”Hobbit” affair. “Sir Peter Jackson – you are fully worthy of joining that other blackened knight, that other exemplar in selling out your country to foreign corporations, the one for whom this award is named – Sir Roger Douglas”. So, a triple sweep for the movie industry – the Roger, the Accomplice and the Quisling. Says it all really, doesn’t it.

The Roger: The night’s big trophy for the Worst

Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/

New Zealand in 2010

Read and/or download
> Chief Judges’ Statement

> Judges’ Report Warner Brothers

> An Award Winning Performance
.....Financial Analysis - Warner
.....Brothers

> Roger Award 2010 - the FULL Report

> Murray Horton's Event Speech

Also available
> Full list of nominees
> The criteria for judging
> The Judges

Water privatization does not yield cost savings

2011-04-01T08:09:00.000+13:00

"Proponents of privatization consistently argue that it saves costs due to competitive pressures private providers face to be more efficient. Over the last four decades there has been considerable experimentation with privatization. Results are inconsistent. Some cases find savings; others do not. To get beyond the “battle of the case studies” my colleagues and I conducted a meta-analysis of all published studies on water distribution. A comprehensive scientific analysis shows the value of a careful review of theory and empirical evidence in making policy choices. Our analysis found no empirical support for cost savings."

By Mildred E. Warner

You can read the entire article here or download it in PDF here

Also well worth checking out is Reclaiming Public Water a groundbreaking book on how reformed public water services can achieve the goal of delivering water for all. Downloadable by chapter.

Want to feed the World? Scrap Corporate-Controlled Agriculture

2011-03-15T09:18:00.001+13:00

Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years,
says new UN report

Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest.

“To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavourable environments.”

Olivier De Schutter: ditch
corporate-controlled, chemical-intensive farming.

There are a billion hungry people in the world and that number could rise as food insecurity increases along with population growth, economic fallout and environmental crises. But a roadmap to defeating hunger exists, if we can follow the course -- and that course involves ditching corporate-controlled, chemical-intensive farming.

The report, based on an extensive review of recent scientific literature, demonstrates that agroecology, if sufficiently supported, can double food production in entire regions within 10 years while mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty.

Now it’s Fair Trade: rebranding the TPPA

2011-03-03T13:48:00.001+13:00

Nothing new under the sun;
colonise your opponents language

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Re-branding is nothing new to the world of business, particularly when the brand carries the burden of history (think North America Free Trade Agreement). It comes then as no surprise that the advocates of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, the much hyped free trade agreement for the 21st century, have decided on a name change.

According to Illinois Republican Congressman Don Manzullo, leader of the congressional delegation to last month’s NZ-US Partnership Forum, in Christchurch to “help negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership” it’s actually a 'fair' trade agreement.

Congressman Manzullo’s media release expresses “serious concerns with proposals by some negotiating partners to eliminate the patentability of software and weaken trademark protection for certain products, as well as the absence of robust investor-state dispute settlement”.

The vid below untangles all that jargon, and is well worth viewing, but the short of it simply put, Australia’s tobacco ‘plain packaging’ and the soft ware patent legislation are a problem.

What's the question?

2011-02-18T12:04:00.003+13:00

Privatisation Resources from the NZCTU

A 2-sided flyer in both ‘word, and ‘PDF’ and a

PowerPoint presentation

All can be viewed and/or downloaded here
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Rise in Australian investment threshold has dangers

2011-02-15T12:21:00.000+13:00

The increase in the threshold on investment from Australia has dangers not only for the relationship with Australia, says CTU Economist Bill Rosenberg.

In a deal to be signed between the New Zealand and Australian Prime Ministers any Australian business investment in New Zealand valued under $477 million – almost half a billion dollars – will no longer be subject to scrutiny.

Bill Rosenberg said: “It is not the Overseas Investment Office scrutiny that matters so much. That has never been more than a stamp on the hand as the investment is made. It is that sensible policies like the Labour Party’s proposed stronger rules for overseas investment in strategic assets, or the Greens’ policies for more stringent conditions on overseas investment, or policies in the CTU’s own Alternative Economic Strategy will be ruled out. Labour for example wants to impose a 25 percent limit on overseas ownership of strategic assets. Under this new investment agreement, that will only be possible for assets over the $477 million limit. Commitments in the WTO and other bilateral agreements already make those policies difficult.”

“But it gets worse. The US will undoubtedly want the same limit in the Transpacific Partnership Agreement currently under negotiation. They may want an even higher one like the limit of over NZ$1 billion they imposed on Australia in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement.”

This is a sign that the Government is willing to free up much further foreign ownership of New Zealand’s largest and economically most important assets,” says Rosenberg. “This comes at a time when we are supposed to be trying to reduce our overseas liabilities.”

NZCTU Media Release 15/02/2011

Trade Agreements and Financial Crisis

2011-02-02T09:08:00.003+13:00

Capital Controls and the 250 economists

"When such prominent economists as
Joseph Stiglitz and Dani Rodrik speak,
New Zealand should listen”,
Jane Kelsey

Many governments have used capital controls effectively to prevent or mitigate financial crises.

However, U.S. trade and investment agreements still include sweeping restrictions on this policy tool. IPS has teamed up with the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University to coordinate an economist statement urging the Obama administration to change course and allow governments to use capital controls, as part of a broader menu of policy options to protect their people from financial volatility.

For more on the links between trade and finance see
.

The WTO is trying to privatise and commodify every human activity

2011-01-28T13:03:00.000+13:00

Susan George on the WTO, World Bank and IMF

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Susan George on the WTO, World Bank and IMF

Close the Waihopai Spybase

2011-01-24T07:48:00.001+13:00

and end N.Z. involvement in U.S. Wars

People from all around New Zealand are protesting in Blenheim and at the super-secret Waihopai satellite interception spybase on Saturday. The Wikileaks NZ cables reveal the central role that this spybase plays in the secret intelligence relationship between NZ and the US, proving what the Anti-Bases Campaign has been saying all along. Full US/NZ intelligence ties were secretly restored in 2009.

The war in Afghanistan, in which the NZ military is directly involved, has got dramatically worse. Simultaneously, the US is dangling a Free Trade Agreement, via the Trans Pacific Partnership as NZ’s “reward” – nothing has changed since Holyoake’s “guns for butter” catchcry of the Vietnam War years. Now it’s guns for milk.

The theme of our activities, both at the spybase and in Blenheim, is anti-war. The US says that Intelligence is the key component of all the wars that it is fighting, or planning to fight, throughout the world. The Anti-Bases Campaign (supported by the Wikileaks cables) points out that Waihopai, an important source of intelligence for the Pentagon, is New Zealand’s most important contribution to the American war machine and it means that we New Zealanders have blood on our hands.To symbolise that, our props include crosses, coffins and white masks. This is the first protest at the spybase since the March 2010 acquittal of the Ploughshares peace activists for the 2008 deflation of one of its domes. As part of our activities we will be celebrating that acquittal. The speakers, either in Blenheim and/or the spybase, are: Peter Murnane, one of the three acquitted Ploughshares peace activists; Keith Locke, Green MP; John Minto, of Global Peace and Justice Auckland; and Murray Horton of the Anti-Bases Campaign.

Waihopai, of course, is a “New Zealand” base – or so the Government says. The fact is, however, that in everything but name it is an outpost of American intelligence – paid for by the long suffering NZ taxpayer. Between $500 million and $1 billion of public money has been spent on the NZ Government Communications Security Bureau (the agency which runs Waihopai) in the 23 years of Waihopai’s operation. That money could have been much better utilised on health and education, not spying on behalf of Uncle Sam.

Nor does it do anything to protect us from terrorists or foreign agents. Just seven years ago Israeli intelligence agents were caught in Auckland, fraudulently trying to obtain fake NZ passports. They were imprisoned and deported and there was a major row with Israel. But they were caught by an Internal Affairs officer who tipped off the Police. Waihopai played no role in protecting us from these foreign criminals operating in our country.

Waihopai does not operate in the national interest of New Zealand.
Waihopai must be closed.

Support the Anti-Bases Campaign

Text from an Anti-Bases Campaign Article written for the Marlborough Express by Murray Horton the spokesperson for the Anti-Bases Campaign. the Anti-Bases Campaign has been organising protests at the Waihopai spybase since 1988.

Waihopai 2011

Bomber Sums It Up

2011-01-21T08:07:00.001+13:00

Free Trade with America is not free

Over on the popular Tumeke blog Bomber Bradbury has hit the nail on the head “the Government” he writes “is lying about the so called benefits from this free trade deal with America”

While Prime Minister John Key was claiming the deal would be worth “billions and billions" chief trade negotiator Mark Sinclair was acknowledging, to his US counterparts, that public expectations would need to be ‘managed’ (read manipulated) because an FTA with the US would not be an `El Dorado'.

You can read Bombers piece here

Let the softening up begin

2011-01-18T16:02:00.003+13:00

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Good case for partial SOE privatisation?

“Uhhh, hello? Dial back a generation”

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce

.
We need “to think more about partially privatising state owned assets” according to Professor Susan Watson and senior lecturer Chye-Ching Huang of Auckland University’s Business School's Commercial Law department.

The comments from readers of the opinion piece in today’s Herald are perhaps best summarised by a contributor signing off as MBG; “Uhhh, hello? Dial back a generation” and it sure does seem familiar - ‘deja vu all over again’ as Yog Berra would have it.

The privatising - assets stripping agenda of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s wasn’t such a success, as noted by the OECD’s 2003 economic survey “the mystery is why a country that seems close to best practice in most of the policies that are regarded as the key drivers of growth is nevertheless just an average performer”1.

Still we have been warned, privatisation is on the agenda this year and the softening up has started.

Read the article here

Also see

Be warned: fight over assets likely

1“ A rowing boat on the open sea, or in a haven from financial and environmental crises? - New Zealand, the GFC, and a union response” Bill Rosenberg .P7

Gulf War Peace Vigil

2011-01-11T16:17:00.000+13:00

.
20th anniversary of Gulf War Commencement

Music, readings, prayer

Join a ‘die-in’

Simultaneous vigils are being held in Washington DC, London, Dublin, Bagdad, Sydney and other places

Speakers include

Kate Dewes, Rob Green, Martin and Lois Griffiths,
Jim Consedine, Anna-Claire Hunter

Oppose NZ’s involvement in Afghanistan

Come and bring a friend!

Transnationals’ Profits Down, So Money Actually Stays In Nz

2010-12-28T14:47:00.000+13:00

The upside down world: tens of billions of dollars leaving NZ = an improvement?

The news just keeps getting better. Not only did the Overseas Investment Office and the Government refuse the application by Natural Dairy to buy the Crafar Farms but taxpayers got another Christmas present this week with the announcement that the quarterly current account is in surplus for only the third time since 1987 (after decades of an increasingly dire current account deficit). Why? Partly because the profits of transnational corporations fell by $551 million and therefore less money is being sucked out of the country in the form of repatriated profits.

In the upside down world of neo-liberal economics this is seen as being a bad thing and “the experts” fervently wish for the normal scenario of tens of billions of dollars leaving NZ and a soaring current account deficit to resume as the economy “improves” (for whom?). But this unusual state of affairs, just in time for Christmas, has given New Zealand workers and taxpayers a tantalising glimpse of what this country could actually be like if it wasn't run as a branch office of the transnationals and bled dry in the process – money would actually stay in the country, where it could be used in the national interest. What a thought.

Go figure: If not for Canterbury earthquake there’d be a
$1.8 billion deficit for the September quarter

Actually the single biggest reason why the current account is in surplus is because of an estimated $1.7 billion of reinsurance claims from the Canterbury earthquake (that is the amount that NZ insurers expect to claim from the overseas reinsurers). If it wasn’t for that the current account would have a $1.8 billion deficit for the September quarter, instead of a $35 million surplus. So, speaking as one of the 160,000 earthquake claimants, I’m delighted that we’re doing our bit to help out the economy. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t have made a bigger claim and helped it out even more. Oh wait, that would have meant that my house would have been destroyed instead of just suffering moderate damage. Because in the upside down world of conventional economics, a natural disaster is great for business and GDP. Perhaps we should really go to town and have a war. That’s always good for business.

CAFCA Media Release Fri 24/12/2010

2010 ROGER AWARD FINALISTS NAMED

2010-12-10T16:01:00.004+13:00

Bad luck to all the finalists

and may the worst man win!

The six finalists for the 2010 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand are (in alphabetical order): BUPA, Imperial Tobacco, Telecom, Vodafone, Warner Brothers and Westpac. There is one finalist for the Accomplice Award (accompanying Warner Brothers) – the Government. The quantity of finalists is down from the nine in 2009 but the “quality” of the six in 2010 certainly isn’t. BUPA is a British-owned operator of a chain of retirement homes, one of the very largest in this sector which has become dominated by for profit corporations, with many of them foreign-owned. It was nominated for its shabby treatment of both its residents and workers (one piece of evidence supporting its nomination was a lengthy New Zealand Herald article about a 100 year old BUPA home resident who died of scabies, to the outrage of her family).

Select Committee hearings throw
spotlight on lethally addictive drug

Imperial Tobacco was nominated for all the reasons one would expect a major tobacco transnational corporation (TNC) to make the cut, starting with the fact that several thousand New Zealanders die every year from the effects of smoking. This entirely preventable killer by a legally and lethally addictive drug was put under the spotlight in 2010 by the Select Committee hearings on its disproportionate impact on Maori. This is the first time that Imperial has been a finalist, with the tobacco industry usually having been represented among the finalists by its bigger rival British American Tobacco (the 2008 Roger winner). BAT was nominated again in 2010, so the Award organisers, who select the finalists, were spolit for choice.

Habitual finalist makes
the cut yet again

Telecom remains the only TNC to have been a finalist every year since the Roger Award started, in 1997 (although it has only actually won it twice). It was nominated for a number of reasons but the reason it went through to the finalists yet again was because of something unique to it in 2010, namely the fiasco involving the repeated collapses of its much hyped XT mobile network. Not only did these collapses (occurring over several months) inconvenience several hundred thousand customers; they also knocked out the 111 emergency service on occasion and thus endangered both life and property. That fact alone led to major criticism of Telecom by the public, media and Government.

First timers: 'profiteering, and shabby
treatment of both its workers and customers'

Vodafone makes its first appearance as a finalist (also marking the first time that both major phone TNCs have been Roger finalists). It is there for different reasons than Telecom, namely its shabby treatment of its workers. Westpac (which was also a finalist in 2009 and was the joint winner of the 2005 Roger) was nominated for a number of reasons, such as profiteering, and shabby treatment of both its workers and customers. It wasn’t the only bank nominated but it was felt that the case against it was stronger than that against the other nominee (ANZ, which won the 2009 Roger).

The sole Accomplice Award nominee;
The NZ Government for forelock tugging &
groveling

Finally, Warner Brothers makes its first appearance in the Roger Award, going straight through to the finalists, because of it providing a textbook example of a big TNC bullying a small country’s film industry and extorting further corporate welfare from a craven Government only too eager to increase the taxpayer subsidy being paid to this corporate bludger for it to deign to continue filming “The Hobbit” in NZ. As part of that nomination, the Government is the sole finalist for the Accomplice Award for its forelock tugging and grovelling to Warners and its local mouthpiece, Sir Peter Jackson; specifically, by changing the employment laws to change all film workers into contractors (with far fewer legal rights) and giving Warners tens of millions of our money to add insult to injury.

The organisers agonised long and hard before choosing these six TNCs as finalists, as there were plenty of other worthy contenders, including two previous winners (BAT and ANZ) and some major corporate villains such as McDonalds.

The winner(s) will be announced at an Auckland event in April 2011. The Roger Award is jointly organised by CAFCA and GATT Watchdog. Full details, including previous winners and annual Judges’ Reports, can be read here

The judging criteria can be found here and this year’s judges here

Warner Brothers: ‘Bullying and extorting further corporate welfare’

Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa
Media Release 10/12/2010

The impact of free trade on the financial crisis … and vice versa

2010-12-09T10:22:00.000+13:00

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Behind the currency wars and the worsening global economic crisis lies a largely unquestioned free trade model that both contributed to the crisis and, without radical reform, is a major obstacle to overcoming it.

“The financial and economic crisis has revealed the fundamental problems of the free trade paradigm: free trade can lead to huge trade surpluses and deficits among countries with unequal trade capacity and unequal trade, economic and social policies. These trade imbalances and resulting current account deficits were first blamed to have contributed to the crisis and are now considered to be an obstacle to recovery of those countries with a trade deficit, such as the US, and create foreign exchange problems for some countries face.”

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Australian and NZ groups urge PMs to reject US investment demands next week

2010-12-06T10:00:00.006+13:00

Philip Morris has used an investor-state dispute process to sue the Uruguayan government when it introduced restrictions on tobacco advertising

Just days before this week’s talks in Auckland on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), civil society groups from Australia and New Zealand have sent a joint open letter to their Prime Ministers urging them to adopt a progressive and balanced approach to foreign investment.

The letter, signed by 43 organisations, urges the two governments to reject expected US demands for rules and enforcement mechanisms contained in past US free trade deals.

New Zealand coordinator of the letter, Professor Jane Kelsey, said that the groups who signed the letter applauded the rejection of investor-state enforcement powers by the two governments as an important first step, and urge them to adopt a similarly forward thinking approach by promoting a different kind of investment agreement.

“We are urging the government to jettison the old-style NAFTA model in favour of an agreement among the TPPA parties that is genuinely fit for the 21st century – one that rebalances investor rights with enforceable responsibilities and restores the primacy of national sovereignty and democratic control over investment-related decisions,” she said.

Harvey Purse said tobacco giant Philip Morris has used an investor-state dispute process to sue the Uruguayan government when it introduced restrictions on tobacco advertising, and the company’s submission on the TPPA has again lobbied for this right for investors to sue governments directly.

He said the Australian government’s plans for plain packaging of cigarettes could be subject to the same kind of legal challenge, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, if tobacco companies gained access to investor-state dispute settlement through a TPPA.

Signatories to the letter include both countries’ peak trade union bodies and other unions, faith and environment groups, the culture sector, investment watchdogs and other community organisations.

Also See

Leaked NZ paper reveals rift with US on intellectual property in trade agreement