ANZ, GIVE THEM BACK THEIR MONEY!
The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) fully supports the Frozen Funds Group in its campaign (which now includes pickets of ANZ branches) to get this Australian–owned bank to repay hapless small NZ investors whose money has been frozen due to the collapse of two investment funds run by its subsidiary ING NZ Ltd.
This was the main reason that ANZ was a finalist in the latest (2008) Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand. To quote from the Judges’ Report: “The key charge against ANZ-National in 2008 was its reckless promotion to its banking customers of two investment funds run by its subsidiary ING NZ Ltd, which were then frozen, imprisoning $520 million of small investors’ money. The bank ducked responsibility on all fronts – for giving shonky advice, for misrepresenting ING as ‘low risk’, for failing to bail out its subsidiary to avoid the need to freeze funds, and for continuing to collect advisor fees during the freeze. While keeping the funds frozen, ING then announced a profit of $36 million. As a comprehensive case study of the rapacity and unconscionable behaviour at the expense of ordinary investors that have brought the reputation of Wall Street and its local clones to a new low, the ING saga stacks up well. ANZ has also been a central player in the Opus Prime insolvency in Australia, where again small investors were fleeced while the bank initially concealed crucial information and then looked after itself when the crash came. Only after the Banking Ombudsman became involved did ANZ-National begin paying off a few individual victims caught in the ING affair, ‘on a goodwill basis’. ‘Goodwill’ in this context seems to mean good public relations rather than any real relief for the majority of burned investors”.
And CAFCA supports the campaign by Finsec, the bank worker’s union, to keep bank jobs in NZ. This applies to all four of the Australian-owned banks – ANZ, BNZ, Westpac and ASB - but once again ANZ has “distinguished” itself in this field. To quote, again, from the 2008 Roger Award Judges’ Report: “Buttressing the case against ANZ-National was evidence from Finsec that the bank’s management lied to staff and customers when it promised to increase branch staff numbers while outsourcing 500 back office jobs to India; the bank subsequently announced sweeping cuts in branch staffing. Only truly distinguished performances by two other contenders saved ANZ-National from the Roger this time around” (the Roger Award was won by British American Tobacco NZ Ltd, with Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ Ltd as runner-up).
NZ taxpayers are now the guarantors of the deposits of the banks. Yet we get no say in their running, let alone ownership. The Australian-owned banks go on their merry way piling up profits as if the crash has never happened, while at the same time turning off credit for their NZ customers, refusing to reimburse mum and dad investors whom they have bilked, laying off staff in their hundreds and outsourcing their jobs to Third World cheap labour. It’s time for the Government to remind the foreign banks of that old saying most favoured by moneymen: “He who pays the piper calls the tune”, and to translate that into action.
05 May 2009
THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS, FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS & PRIVATISATION
Murray Horton gave this speech to a Workers Rights Campaign Seminar in Christchurch at the weekend.
You don’t need me to tell you that the world is in a once in a century economic crisis right now. As capitalism (which is usually misleadingly labelled as “democracy”) was declared the winner of the nearly 50 year long Cold War, and capitalist triumphalism was the dominant theme of the past two decades, along with American unilateralism, this means that what we are experiencing is a genuine, full blown crisis of capitalism. I should say at the outset that, unfortunately, I do not share the view that this means “the death of capitalism”. It has survived and mutated into new forms throughout all its previous great and small crises, including the Depression, which is the only precedent for what we’re experiencing now. It won’t die unless something kills it. As my old mate Chairman Mao said: “If you don’t hit it, it won’t fall”. But that’s a whole different subject from what we’re discussing today. I do hope, for all our sakes that this crisis does not mutate into fascism and world war as the last one did.
The consensus seems to be that the full force of the tsunami hasn’t yet reached our distant shores and the worst is still to come, that NZ is maybe 12 months behind the rest of the world. It is easy to deny that what has happened in the much bigger and quite different economies of, say, the US and Britain, won’t be replicated here. After all, our banks did not get into the outright criminality of subprime mortgages, nor do we have crippling imperialist wars to finance. So, it is instructive to consider what has happened to a comparable country, namely Ireland, once known as the Celtic Tiger. Ireland has a similar size population, used to rely on agriculture as its mainstay, has always exported people as we do, and had systemic high unemployment. The cure for all of this was supposed to be foreign investment, with all sorts of inducements offered to the transnational corporations (TNCs), particularly those in the manufacturing end of the high tech electronic industry, to get them to set up shop there. For a while there things were rosy indeed and the country boomed, particularly the housing market (does that sound familiar?). Ireland was regularly cited as a model for NZ, an example of a country that had moved to a “new, smart” economy. But now the TNCs like Dell are quitting Ireland for cheaper labour locations such as Poland.
To quote Time (6/4/09): “The good times owed much to the arrival of foreign-owned companies like Dell – such firms account for almost 90% of Irish exports and more than two thirds of the country’s business R&D – so the scaling down of a flagship investor is a real blow. It’s not the only one. After more than decade of rampant growth, Ireland now looks anaemic. A burst property bubble has landed the country in a deep recession. The economy could shrink as much as 6.5% this year, with unemployment set to reach 12%. Irish banks – massively exposed to property – look wobbly, and as tax receipts dwindle, public finances are in a mess”. The parallel is not exact, of course – foreign investors in NZ have tended not to actually set up very much by way of manufacturing plants here, and NZ manufacturers have headed for the cheaper labour of anywhere from Fiji to China in the past two decades. So manufacturing was already buggered before this latest crisis came along. But there is enough commonality there to sound a very loud warning to NZ. If you put all your eggs in the basket marked “foreign investment”, prepare to be left with just a mess of broken eggs.
What the major capitalist countries are doing is throwing unimaginably huge sums of money at the problem in an attempt to “save capitalism” (or, at least, to save the skins of their respective ruling classes who got them into the mess in the first place). Some more excitable commentators have described this as socialism. No such luck, it is simply State capitalism on an enormous scale. But, whatever it is called, it represents a fundamentally different species of capitalism to the completely laissez faire variety that has been globally running amok for the past 30 odd years. The more perceptive of the capitalist leaders have recognised that things can not simply proceed as they did before, or else this whole scenario will be repeated. In short, something has to change.
But not as far as good old New Zealand is concerned. I’ve already said that there is a tsunami coming but our Government is running full tilt towards it, transfixed by the big, shiny wave. While the rest of the capitalist world is now full of born again Keynesians (and Marx is being studied again as the most insightful critic of capitalism). But National and Act, and their strangely silent Maori Party partner, are still living in the recent past, where the patron saints were Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, not to mention Roger Douglas. They are behaving as if nothing has happened or, even worse, that nothing is going to happen.
A distinguishing characteristic of this denial of reality is the Government’s continued fixation on foreign “investment” as the answer to all questions. It got elected as “Labour Lite” (actually Labour was pretty much “Labour Lite” in the first place) but has decided that the already considerably liberalised Overseas Investment Act, which came into force only as recently as 2005 (Michael Cullen’s legacy) is “too tough” on the poor old TNCs and needs to be eased up even further. Bill English has announced a review of the Act, to be completed by the end of June, with new legislation ready by later this year. As the review has not yet been completed, we don’t know the details, but you can bet dollars to doughnuts that it will call for the door to be thrown wide open or, even better, ripped off the hinges. Tories are fond of calling for “locking them up and throwing away the key” in relation to crime; in the case of foreign investment, they call for unlocking the door and throwing away the key so that it can’t be locked again. I see this obsession with foreign investment (what they like to call “an open economy”) as being like a cargo cult, with the Government of the day (and it is a bipartisan obsession, with Labour equally as guilty) frantically cutting landing strips in the jungle and awaiting the arrival of the big shiny planes that will come out of the sky and bring all the cargo that will solve all our problems.
Two other broken down old nags make up this trifecta of losers – privatisation and “free trade”. New Zealand is a heavy backer of both. Privatisation is a very touchy subject for Tory strategists because the New Zealand people have had so much negative experience of it, and don’t want any more of it. It was given free rein here in the 80s and 90s and was a bloody disaster. Key got elected by promising not to privatise any State assets during his first term, including the likes of Kiwi Rail which was only renationalised by Labour in its last few months in power. This election promise is one which will stick in the throat of the National and Act ideologues and they will be working overtime to think up ways to privatise things without actually calling it privatisation. Hence the talk of “opening up ACC to competition” (which will come from the global insurance TNCs – the mates of AIG, the US insurance giant which has come to personify everything that is wrong with the global financial sector) rather than baldly announcing that ACC is to be flogged off. Hence the death by a thousand cuts of TVNZ. To give just the most recent example – if you want to watch the 2011 Rugby World Cup in its entirety, you’ll need to pay for Sky TV, it won’t all be on free to air. So, TVNZ loses more and more of the prizes and its demise becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as viewers feel compelled to switch to Sky. Then the Government will be able to self righteously wring its hands and say that it has no alternative but to sell TVNZ, for a bargain price. Hence the new fashion of Public Private Partnerships in sectors such as roads and other infrastructure, with these PPPs (first championed by Labour) being seen as a more acceptable alternative to outright privatisation, with the added benefit for the TNCs that they don’t have to shoulder all the cost and the risk.
“Free” trade is an absolute item of faith for both National and Labour, who use it to look at the world down the wrong end of the telescope. Jane Kelsey has described the bipartisan approach as being “what is good for Fonterra is good for New Zealand”, meaning there is an absolute obsession with opening up global markets for NZ agricultural products, with no concern whatsoever for the disastrous impacts of the reciprocal opening of the NZ economy (nor for the truly catastrophic effects that “free” trade has on the poor countries who comprise the majority of the world’s people – but that’s a separate subject). New Zealand, who gifted Mike Moore to the world as one of its Directors General, has been monomaniacal in its drive to get the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation wrapped up. But, despite our best efforts, the talks are hopelessly stalled. Why? Because other countries, including the very biggest capitalist ones, are not as keen as us to jump off the cliff, trusting only in “the market” to ensure a safe landing. All of those other countries quite unashamedly have their own national interests to be protected.
Both National and Labour governments have worked tirelessly to sign NZ up to free trade agreements, any free trade agreements. If the multilateral WTO talks are bogged down, then NZ hares off after other regional or bilateral agreements. It’s worth listing what trade agreements NZ is already in:
Closer Economic Relations with Australia;
multilateral agreements with the Association of South East Asian Nations; the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (with various Pacific countries); the Pacific Four (P4) Agreement with Singapore, Chile and Brunei;
bilateral Free Trade Agreements with China, Singapore and Thailand;
and bilateral investment agreements with Hong Kong and China.
In addition, the following Free Trade Agreements are currently under negotiation by the NZ government:
An expanded P4, now called the Transpacific, involving the US, Singapore, Brunei, Chile, Australia, Peru and perhaps Vietnam and others;
South Korea;
Hong Kong;
Gulf States;
and India.
New Zealand is nothing if not persistent. The proposed Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement stalled in 2002, under Labour, and the restart of negotiations was only announced this year. Of those currently under negotiation the most important is the Transpacific, because its announcement in the final few months of the Labour government was heralded as the means to secure the Holy Grail of a Free Trade Agreement with the US. Fortunately, the Obama Administration has put a fly in the ointment by announcing the indefinite suspension of negotiations while it conducts a review of the trade policy it inherited from George Bush. This doesn’t mean that the deal is off, just that it’s on hold for the meantime, much to the disappointment of both National and Labour.
It is important to realise that these agreements, both current and those under negotiation, are not just about trade. They contain major provisions locking in a heavily tilted playing field for the TNCs. For example, under NZ’s Free Trade Agreement with China any further opening of foreign investment cannot be rolled back by future NZ governments as it applies to Chinese investors without the consent of the Chinese government. Similar provisions apply in the other actual or potential Free Trade Agreements. It is called the National Treatment provision, meaning that companies from the other country must be treated the same as NZ companies, otherwise they can claim that they are being discriminated against and seek legal redress.
Who is driving this whole agenda? Obviously the ideologues in both National and Act (the latter is very much the tail wagging the dog), plus their allies in Labour. Treasury, which was sidelined to some degree under Labour, is back in the driving seat – its officials are conducting the review of the Overseas Investment Act. Treasury makes no secret that it supports no legal differentiation between foreign and NZ companies and that is what it recommended to the Labour government the last time the Act was reviewed – Labour was not prepared to go that far, because of opposition from within its own caucus and from its own voters. As we have recently seen, the OECD has issued a diktat to NZ urging, among many other things, wholesale privatisation, State asset sales, slashing public services and liberalising the foreign investment law. This is richly ironic coming from the mouthpiece of the richest capitalist economies which are themselves doing just the opposite, namely drastically increasing the role of the State (or, at least, taxpayers’ money) in the failed private sector. Obviously the OECD ideologues are as hopelessly out of touch with reality as their NZ counterparts. The agenda is also being driven by interested parties such as major NZ law firm Chapman Tripp, which makes a nice living out of acting for foreign investors. It called for a major review of the Act to sort out what it calls the “muddle”. The Government’s terms of reference for the review bear a strong resemblance to Chapman Tripp’s recommendations. It is driven by foreign investors themselves, such as a gentleman called Farhad Vladi who buys and sells islands around the world (including in NZ) for his super rich clients. He told the media recently that the current law is unfair to, and too tough on, foreign investors. And finally it is driven by the transnational corporate media which campaigned tirelessly to get National back into power and which all too often parrots the party line that “NZ needs to further open our economy”.
I’ve been asked to speak about the consequences of all this for workers, so I’ll conclude with that. I would have thought that they were pretty self evident. I used to be a “real” worker myself, so I’ll speak about where I used to work, namely the Railways. I was made redundant in 1991, just before the former Employment Contracts Act came into force. But I was there, indeed I was a union official, right through the period of “rationalising, restructuring and corporatisation”, all of which led to massive unemployment (including myself). That Act, which was part of the last National government’s drive to “make NZ attractive to foreign investors”, slashed pay and eliminated conditions for all NZ workers and disempowered the great majority of them by deunionising them. The disastrous privatisation of the Railways that followed in 1993, lasting until 2008, led to further mass unemployment and in the case of the criminally negligent TranzRail, deaths and injuries to both its workers and the public. There are very good reasons why TranzRail won three of the first six Roger Awards for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It was a text book example of what happens when a State asset is privatised. Telecom is the other big one, but there are plenty more. I’m sure that there are people here who can provide their own experiences. A policy of untrammelled foreign investment, free trade and privatisation is extremely bad for workers because that policy is a major contributor to what is known as the race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator.
And finally, we need to dispel some of the pernicious myths peddled by these cultists about foreign “investment” as the One True Path to the Promised Land.
It doesn’t bring in “much needed money”. Quite the opposite, it sucks money out of the country. In the decade 1997-2006 transnational corporations made $50 billion profits in NZ. Only 32% of that was reinvested here; meaning that 2/3 of that enormous sum left the country. That is itself is a major cause of NZ’s Current Account Deficit (the Balance of Payments) being so high.
It doesn’t provide “much needed jobs”. Foreign companies only employ 19% of the NZ workforce, despite owning a disproportionately large chunk of the economy. 81% work for NZ employers. And those very same foreign companies significantly add to the unemployment total, having made tens of thousands of NZ workers jobless in the decades in which we’ve had a “liberalised” foreign investment regime.
It does nothing to improve NZ’s foreign debt problem. This is one area highlighted by the OECD report and it is nonsense. In 1984, when Rogernomics started, NZ’s total private and public foreign debt was $16 billion. By December 2008, it was $248 billion, the vast majority of that held by the corporate sector, not the Government, and totaling 137% of GDP. So, despite all those numerous State asset sales, the foreign debt has just kept on soaring.
Continuing to follow these discredited policies is a recipe for disaster, even on capitalist terms. They lead only to a dead end and in the process it will be ordinary NZ workers who will get badly hurt. It is what has happened in the past, it is happening now and blind adherence to this mumbo jumbo will only make it worse.
You don’t need me to tell you that the world is in a once in a century economic crisis right now. As capitalism (which is usually misleadingly labelled as “democracy”) was declared the winner of the nearly 50 year long Cold War, and capitalist triumphalism was the dominant theme of the past two decades, along with American unilateralism, this means that what we are experiencing is a genuine, full blown crisis of capitalism. I should say at the outset that, unfortunately, I do not share the view that this means “the death of capitalism”. It has survived and mutated into new forms throughout all its previous great and small crises, including the Depression, which is the only precedent for what we’re experiencing now. It won’t die unless something kills it. As my old mate Chairman Mao said: “If you don’t hit it, it won’t fall”. But that’s a whole different subject from what we’re discussing today. I do hope, for all our sakes that this crisis does not mutate into fascism and world war as the last one did.
The consensus seems to be that the full force of the tsunami hasn’t yet reached our distant shores and the worst is still to come, that NZ is maybe 12 months behind the rest of the world. It is easy to deny that what has happened in the much bigger and quite different economies of, say, the US and Britain, won’t be replicated here. After all, our banks did not get into the outright criminality of subprime mortgages, nor do we have crippling imperialist wars to finance. So, it is instructive to consider what has happened to a comparable country, namely Ireland, once known as the Celtic Tiger. Ireland has a similar size population, used to rely on agriculture as its mainstay, has always exported people as we do, and had systemic high unemployment. The cure for all of this was supposed to be foreign investment, with all sorts of inducements offered to the transnational corporations (TNCs), particularly those in the manufacturing end of the high tech electronic industry, to get them to set up shop there. For a while there things were rosy indeed and the country boomed, particularly the housing market (does that sound familiar?). Ireland was regularly cited as a model for NZ, an example of a country that had moved to a “new, smart” economy. But now the TNCs like Dell are quitting Ireland for cheaper labour locations such as Poland.
To quote Time (6/4/09): “The good times owed much to the arrival of foreign-owned companies like Dell – such firms account for almost 90% of Irish exports and more than two thirds of the country’s business R&D – so the scaling down of a flagship investor is a real blow. It’s not the only one. After more than decade of rampant growth, Ireland now looks anaemic. A burst property bubble has landed the country in a deep recession. The economy could shrink as much as 6.5% this year, with unemployment set to reach 12%. Irish banks – massively exposed to property – look wobbly, and as tax receipts dwindle, public finances are in a mess”. The parallel is not exact, of course – foreign investors in NZ have tended not to actually set up very much by way of manufacturing plants here, and NZ manufacturers have headed for the cheaper labour of anywhere from Fiji to China in the past two decades. So manufacturing was already buggered before this latest crisis came along. But there is enough commonality there to sound a very loud warning to NZ. If you put all your eggs in the basket marked “foreign investment”, prepare to be left with just a mess of broken eggs.
What the major capitalist countries are doing is throwing unimaginably huge sums of money at the problem in an attempt to “save capitalism” (or, at least, to save the skins of their respective ruling classes who got them into the mess in the first place). Some more excitable commentators have described this as socialism. No such luck, it is simply State capitalism on an enormous scale. But, whatever it is called, it represents a fundamentally different species of capitalism to the completely laissez faire variety that has been globally running amok for the past 30 odd years. The more perceptive of the capitalist leaders have recognised that things can not simply proceed as they did before, or else this whole scenario will be repeated. In short, something has to change.
But not as far as good old New Zealand is concerned. I’ve already said that there is a tsunami coming but our Government is running full tilt towards it, transfixed by the big, shiny wave. While the rest of the capitalist world is now full of born again Keynesians (and Marx is being studied again as the most insightful critic of capitalism). But National and Act, and their strangely silent Maori Party partner, are still living in the recent past, where the patron saints were Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, not to mention Roger Douglas. They are behaving as if nothing has happened or, even worse, that nothing is going to happen.
A distinguishing characteristic of this denial of reality is the Government’s continued fixation on foreign “investment” as the answer to all questions. It got elected as “Labour Lite” (actually Labour was pretty much “Labour Lite” in the first place) but has decided that the already considerably liberalised Overseas Investment Act, which came into force only as recently as 2005 (Michael Cullen’s legacy) is “too tough” on the poor old TNCs and needs to be eased up even further. Bill English has announced a review of the Act, to be completed by the end of June, with new legislation ready by later this year. As the review has not yet been completed, we don’t know the details, but you can bet dollars to doughnuts that it will call for the door to be thrown wide open or, even better, ripped off the hinges. Tories are fond of calling for “locking them up and throwing away the key” in relation to crime; in the case of foreign investment, they call for unlocking the door and throwing away the key so that it can’t be locked again. I see this obsession with foreign investment (what they like to call “an open economy”) as being like a cargo cult, with the Government of the day (and it is a bipartisan obsession, with Labour equally as guilty) frantically cutting landing strips in the jungle and awaiting the arrival of the big shiny planes that will come out of the sky and bring all the cargo that will solve all our problems.
Two other broken down old nags make up this trifecta of losers – privatisation and “free trade”. New Zealand is a heavy backer of both. Privatisation is a very touchy subject for Tory strategists because the New Zealand people have had so much negative experience of it, and don’t want any more of it. It was given free rein here in the 80s and 90s and was a bloody disaster. Key got elected by promising not to privatise any State assets during his first term, including the likes of Kiwi Rail which was only renationalised by Labour in its last few months in power. This election promise is one which will stick in the throat of the National and Act ideologues and they will be working overtime to think up ways to privatise things without actually calling it privatisation. Hence the talk of “opening up ACC to competition” (which will come from the global insurance TNCs – the mates of AIG, the US insurance giant which has come to personify everything that is wrong with the global financial sector) rather than baldly announcing that ACC is to be flogged off. Hence the death by a thousand cuts of TVNZ. To give just the most recent example – if you want to watch the 2011 Rugby World Cup in its entirety, you’ll need to pay for Sky TV, it won’t all be on free to air. So, TVNZ loses more and more of the prizes and its demise becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as viewers feel compelled to switch to Sky. Then the Government will be able to self righteously wring its hands and say that it has no alternative but to sell TVNZ, for a bargain price. Hence the new fashion of Public Private Partnerships in sectors such as roads and other infrastructure, with these PPPs (first championed by Labour) being seen as a more acceptable alternative to outright privatisation, with the added benefit for the TNCs that they don’t have to shoulder all the cost and the risk.
“Free” trade is an absolute item of faith for both National and Labour, who use it to look at the world down the wrong end of the telescope. Jane Kelsey has described the bipartisan approach as being “what is good for Fonterra is good for New Zealand”, meaning there is an absolute obsession with opening up global markets for NZ agricultural products, with no concern whatsoever for the disastrous impacts of the reciprocal opening of the NZ economy (nor for the truly catastrophic effects that “free” trade has on the poor countries who comprise the majority of the world’s people – but that’s a separate subject). New Zealand, who gifted Mike Moore to the world as one of its Directors General, has been monomaniacal in its drive to get the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation wrapped up. But, despite our best efforts, the talks are hopelessly stalled. Why? Because other countries, including the very biggest capitalist ones, are not as keen as us to jump off the cliff, trusting only in “the market” to ensure a safe landing. All of those other countries quite unashamedly have their own national interests to be protected.
Both National and Labour governments have worked tirelessly to sign NZ up to free trade agreements, any free trade agreements. If the multilateral WTO talks are bogged down, then NZ hares off after other regional or bilateral agreements. It’s worth listing what trade agreements NZ is already in:
Closer Economic Relations with Australia;
multilateral agreements with the Association of South East Asian Nations; the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (with various Pacific countries); the Pacific Four (P4) Agreement with Singapore, Chile and Brunei;
bilateral Free Trade Agreements with China, Singapore and Thailand;
and bilateral investment agreements with Hong Kong and China.
In addition, the following Free Trade Agreements are currently under negotiation by the NZ government:
An expanded P4, now called the Transpacific, involving the US, Singapore, Brunei, Chile, Australia, Peru and perhaps Vietnam and others;
South Korea;
Hong Kong;
Gulf States;
and India.
New Zealand is nothing if not persistent. The proposed Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement stalled in 2002, under Labour, and the restart of negotiations was only announced this year. Of those currently under negotiation the most important is the Transpacific, because its announcement in the final few months of the Labour government was heralded as the means to secure the Holy Grail of a Free Trade Agreement with the US. Fortunately, the Obama Administration has put a fly in the ointment by announcing the indefinite suspension of negotiations while it conducts a review of the trade policy it inherited from George Bush. This doesn’t mean that the deal is off, just that it’s on hold for the meantime, much to the disappointment of both National and Labour.
It is important to realise that these agreements, both current and those under negotiation, are not just about trade. They contain major provisions locking in a heavily tilted playing field for the TNCs. For example, under NZ’s Free Trade Agreement with China any further opening of foreign investment cannot be rolled back by future NZ governments as it applies to Chinese investors without the consent of the Chinese government. Similar provisions apply in the other actual or potential Free Trade Agreements. It is called the National Treatment provision, meaning that companies from the other country must be treated the same as NZ companies, otherwise they can claim that they are being discriminated against and seek legal redress.
Who is driving this whole agenda? Obviously the ideologues in both National and Act (the latter is very much the tail wagging the dog), plus their allies in Labour. Treasury, which was sidelined to some degree under Labour, is back in the driving seat – its officials are conducting the review of the Overseas Investment Act. Treasury makes no secret that it supports no legal differentiation between foreign and NZ companies and that is what it recommended to the Labour government the last time the Act was reviewed – Labour was not prepared to go that far, because of opposition from within its own caucus and from its own voters. As we have recently seen, the OECD has issued a diktat to NZ urging, among many other things, wholesale privatisation, State asset sales, slashing public services and liberalising the foreign investment law. This is richly ironic coming from the mouthpiece of the richest capitalist economies which are themselves doing just the opposite, namely drastically increasing the role of the State (or, at least, taxpayers’ money) in the failed private sector. Obviously the OECD ideologues are as hopelessly out of touch with reality as their NZ counterparts. The agenda is also being driven by interested parties such as major NZ law firm Chapman Tripp, which makes a nice living out of acting for foreign investors. It called for a major review of the Act to sort out what it calls the “muddle”. The Government’s terms of reference for the review bear a strong resemblance to Chapman Tripp’s recommendations. It is driven by foreign investors themselves, such as a gentleman called Farhad Vladi who buys and sells islands around the world (including in NZ) for his super rich clients. He told the media recently that the current law is unfair to, and too tough on, foreign investors. And finally it is driven by the transnational corporate media which campaigned tirelessly to get National back into power and which all too often parrots the party line that “NZ needs to further open our economy”.
I’ve been asked to speak about the consequences of all this for workers, so I’ll conclude with that. I would have thought that they were pretty self evident. I used to be a “real” worker myself, so I’ll speak about where I used to work, namely the Railways. I was made redundant in 1991, just before the former Employment Contracts Act came into force. But I was there, indeed I was a union official, right through the period of “rationalising, restructuring and corporatisation”, all of which led to massive unemployment (including myself). That Act, which was part of the last National government’s drive to “make NZ attractive to foreign investors”, slashed pay and eliminated conditions for all NZ workers and disempowered the great majority of them by deunionising them. The disastrous privatisation of the Railways that followed in 1993, lasting until 2008, led to further mass unemployment and in the case of the criminally negligent TranzRail, deaths and injuries to both its workers and the public. There are very good reasons why TranzRail won three of the first six Roger Awards for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It was a text book example of what happens when a State asset is privatised. Telecom is the other big one, but there are plenty more. I’m sure that there are people here who can provide their own experiences. A policy of untrammelled foreign investment, free trade and privatisation is extremely bad for workers because that policy is a major contributor to what is known as the race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator.
And finally, we need to dispel some of the pernicious myths peddled by these cultists about foreign “investment” as the One True Path to the Promised Land.
It doesn’t bring in “much needed money”. Quite the opposite, it sucks money out of the country. In the decade 1997-2006 transnational corporations made $50 billion profits in NZ. Only 32% of that was reinvested here; meaning that 2/3 of that enormous sum left the country. That is itself is a major cause of NZ’s Current Account Deficit (the Balance of Payments) being so high.
It doesn’t provide “much needed jobs”. Foreign companies only employ 19% of the NZ workforce, despite owning a disproportionately large chunk of the economy. 81% work for NZ employers. And those very same foreign companies significantly add to the unemployment total, having made tens of thousands of NZ workers jobless in the decades in which we’ve had a “liberalised” foreign investment regime.
It does nothing to improve NZ’s foreign debt problem. This is one area highlighted by the OECD report and it is nonsense. In 1984, when Rogernomics started, NZ’s total private and public foreign debt was $16 billion. By December 2008, it was $248 billion, the vast majority of that held by the corporate sector, not the Government, and totaling 137% of GDP. So, despite all those numerous State asset sales, the foreign debt has just kept on soaring.
Continuing to follow these discredited policies is a recipe for disaster, even on capitalist terms. They lead only to a dead end and in the process it will be ordinary NZ workers who will get badly hurt. It is what has happened in the past, it is happening now and blind adherence to this mumbo jumbo will only make it worse.
The Domebusters - One Year On
CLOSE WAIHOPAI SPYBASE!
It is one year today since the Ploughshares peace activists deflated one of the two domes at the top secret Waihopai spybase (and, in the process, severely deflated the supposed top security of that base). No date has yet been set for the trial of Adrian Leason, Sam Land and Peter Murnane.
Anti-Bases Campaign declared our support for their symbolic action at the time and nothing has happened since to change our view. Indeed, the need to close the Waihopai spybase ASAP is more urgent than ever.
There is a sham debate going on within the Government at present about whether to agree or not to the formal US request to re-commit NZ combat troops, namely the SAS, to help the US wage its worsening war in Afghanistan. New Zealand’s biggest commitment to that, and any other US-led war (Pakistan is next on the list) is not troops or frigates, etc, but Waihopai which, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, is functioning as a vital outpost of US Intelligence on NZ soil. The Bush Administration declared intelligence to be a vital component of its warfighting capacity. The Obama Administration has not changed that emphasis, indeed it relies on it even more in its re-prioritising the war in Afghanistan (and, increasingly, Pakistan) over that in Iraq. Waihopai is part of a global network of US-controlled spybases gathering electronic intelligence and that is what the US military depends on in wars such as in Afghanistan.
April 30 is also the anniversary of the liberation of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the biggest defeat thus far in the history of the American Empire. That war also spread into the countries neighbouring Vietnam, with disastrous consequences, just as the Afghan war has spread into its neighbour.
The coincidence of these two anniversaries on April 30 is a good time for New Zealand to reflect upon what it is still doing, a generation later and despite being nuclear free and out of ANZUS, loyally serving the US and helping it fight its wars and bully the world by hosting a small but vital cog in the global American network of spybases. We pride ourselves on being independent. That won’t be a fact until we have broken the covert ties that still closely bind us to the US war machine.
Close Waihopai spybase now!
It is one year today since the Ploughshares peace activists deflated one of the two domes at the top secret Waihopai spybase (and, in the process, severely deflated the supposed top security of that base). No date has yet been set for the trial of Adrian Leason, Sam Land and Peter Murnane.
Anti-Bases Campaign declared our support for their symbolic action at the time and nothing has happened since to change our view. Indeed, the need to close the Waihopai spybase ASAP is more urgent than ever.
There is a sham debate going on within the Government at present about whether to agree or not to the formal US request to re-commit NZ combat troops, namely the SAS, to help the US wage its worsening war in Afghanistan. New Zealand’s biggest commitment to that, and any other US-led war (Pakistan is next on the list) is not troops or frigates, etc, but Waihopai which, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, is functioning as a vital outpost of US Intelligence on NZ soil. The Bush Administration declared intelligence to be a vital component of its warfighting capacity. The Obama Administration has not changed that emphasis, indeed it relies on it even more in its re-prioritising the war in Afghanistan (and, increasingly, Pakistan) over that in Iraq. Waihopai is part of a global network of US-controlled spybases gathering electronic intelligence and that is what the US military depends on in wars such as in Afghanistan.
April 30 is also the anniversary of the liberation of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the biggest defeat thus far in the history of the American Empire. That war also spread into the countries neighbouring Vietnam, with disastrous consequences, just as the Afghan war has spread into its neighbour.
The coincidence of these two anniversaries on April 30 is a good time for New Zealand to reflect upon what it is still doing, a generation later and despite being nuclear free and out of ANZUS, loyally serving the US and helping it fight its wars and bully the world by hosting a small but vital cog in the global American network of spybases. We pride ourselves on being independent. That won’t be a fact until we have broken the covert ties that still closely bind us to the US war machine.
Close Waihopai spybase now!
Peace protester arrested at base
Ms Percy was arrested near the American spy base outside HarrogateA peace campaigner opposed to the activities of an American spy base in North Yorkshire has been arrested outside the site for a bail offence.
Lindis Percy, 64, formerly from Hull, was arrested on Friday evening during a demonstration near Menwith Hill base on the outskirts of Harrogate.
A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said the 67-year-old had been arrested for a breach of bail
conditions.
Ms Percy has been jailed several times for demonstrating outside US bases.
05 April 2009
CAFCA Opposes the Sale of New Zealand Islands - The Herald
An international island broker is marketing 20 island and waterfront peninsula properties around New Zealand to foreign buyers.
And his chances of making a sale are looking up, with the Government promising to make it easier to sell to overseas investors.
Farhad Vladi told the Weekend Herald he had been cautioning rich overseas buyers against investing here unless our laws changed.
Mr Vladi, in Auckland from Hamburg last week to speak to clients of law firm Hesketh Henry, said rules in New Zealand had the effect of actively discouraging foreigners from buying our islands.
"There's a resistance. We have learned that for so-called sensitive land, foreigners are not welcome," he said.
Islands are classified as sensitive and buyers need Overseas Investment Office permission to buy, although most applications are approved.
Mr Vladi tells buyers that New Zealanders prefer foreigners to invest in commercial properties.
However the rules could soon be changing after the Government announced this month it would overhaul the rules and reform the Overseas Investment Act 2005.
Finance Minister Bill English said the legislation was cumbersome and the rules were often difficult to interpret. The law on selling islands to aliens could be in for a big shakeup.
"Current rules are complex and processing a sensitive land application involves the assessment of 27 criteria and factors. The process is too long and too uncertain," Mr English said. He wants sensitive land re-defined "to ensure that only land of particular significance or importance to New Zealand is screened."
He also wants the act changed to better reflect the importance of foreign investment to our economic growth.
One of the most expensive properties on the Vladi Private Islands website is a 9 million ($21 million) coastal horse ranch one hour south of Auckland on the Firth of Thames at Orere Point. The 86ha clifftop property has 2km of coastline, its own private tarsealed roads, rolling farmland, stables and various houses.
For $18 million, foreigners could get a 134ha rural "island-like property" on a Bay of Islands peninsula opposite Opua with half a kilometre of coastline.
Mr Vladi is marketing the 37ha Motukawaiti Island in the Cavalli Islands with "price on request". Pakatoa Island near Auckland has been for sale for years, with owner John Ramsey of Crusader Meats understood to be asking for about $35 million.
For $5 million, foreigners could apply to buy the 61ha Puangiangi Island east of d'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds. All attempts to sell part of Roberton Island in the Bay of Islands have failed lately. A 2.6ha tip of that is on the Vladi website for US$4.5 million ($7.7 million).
Murray Horton, secretary and organiser of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa, is incensed at Mr Vladi's attempts to sell the properties and said it was precisely brokers like him who wanted the Government to overhaul the law.
"Allowing islands to be flogged off to become someone's personal plaything is especially egregious because they are such an iconic part of the national landscape. Where do we stop? Shall we allow Great Barrier or Waiheke to be sold? How about Rangitoto? Perhaps Stewart Island?" he said.
Speculation about sensitive land changes touches a raw nerve with people like Mr Horton after the debacle over Gisborne's Young Nick's Head which was occupied by Ngai Tamanuhiri to protest at an attempted sale to foreign owners. Canadian rock star Shania Twain's purchase of the lease to 24,700ha of rugged and scenic farmland near Wanaka for $21.4 million also sparked an outcry resulting in her opening public access to 29km of tramping tracks and huts.
Mr Horton is worried. "New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world. If the door is left permanently unlocked with a sign saying 'come on in and help yourselves', this proposed law change will simply remove the door - and probably sell that as well," he said.
And his chances of making a sale are looking up, with the Government promising to make it easier to sell to overseas investors.
Farhad Vladi told the Weekend Herald he had been cautioning rich overseas buyers against investing here unless our laws changed.
Mr Vladi, in Auckland from Hamburg last week to speak to clients of law firm Hesketh Henry, said rules in New Zealand had the effect of actively discouraging foreigners from buying our islands.
"There's a resistance. We have learned that for so-called sensitive land, foreigners are not welcome," he said.
Islands are classified as sensitive and buyers need Overseas Investment Office permission to buy, although most applications are approved.
Mr Vladi tells buyers that New Zealanders prefer foreigners to invest in commercial properties.
However the rules could soon be changing after the Government announced this month it would overhaul the rules and reform the Overseas Investment Act 2005.
Finance Minister Bill English said the legislation was cumbersome and the rules were often difficult to interpret. The law on selling islands to aliens could be in for a big shakeup.
"Current rules are complex and processing a sensitive land application involves the assessment of 27 criteria and factors. The process is too long and too uncertain," Mr English said. He wants sensitive land re-defined "to ensure that only land of particular significance or importance to New Zealand is screened."
He also wants the act changed to better reflect the importance of foreign investment to our economic growth.
One of the most expensive properties on the Vladi Private Islands website is a 9 million ($21 million) coastal horse ranch one hour south of Auckland on the Firth of Thames at Orere Point. The 86ha clifftop property has 2km of coastline, its own private tarsealed roads, rolling farmland, stables and various houses.
For $18 million, foreigners could get a 134ha rural "island-like property" on a Bay of Islands peninsula opposite Opua with half a kilometre of coastline.
Mr Vladi is marketing the 37ha Motukawaiti Island in the Cavalli Islands with "price on request". Pakatoa Island near Auckland has been for sale for years, with owner John Ramsey of Crusader Meats understood to be asking for about $35 million.
For $5 million, foreigners could apply to buy the 61ha Puangiangi Island east of d'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds. All attempts to sell part of Roberton Island in the Bay of Islands have failed lately. A 2.6ha tip of that is on the Vladi website for US$4.5 million ($7.7 million).
Murray Horton, secretary and organiser of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa, is incensed at Mr Vladi's attempts to sell the properties and said it was precisely brokers like him who wanted the Government to overhaul the law.
"Allowing islands to be flogged off to become someone's personal plaything is especially egregious because they are such an iconic part of the national landscape. Where do we stop? Shall we allow Great Barrier or Waiheke to be sold? How about Rangitoto? Perhaps Stewart Island?" he said.
Speculation about sensitive land changes touches a raw nerve with people like Mr Horton after the debacle over Gisborne's Young Nick's Head which was occupied by Ngai Tamanuhiri to protest at an attempted sale to foreign owners. Canadian rock star Shania Twain's purchase of the lease to 24,700ha of rugged and scenic farmland near Wanaka for $21.4 million also sparked an outcry resulting in her opening public access to 29km of tramping tracks and huts.
Mr Horton is worried. "New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world. If the door is left permanently unlocked with a sign saying 'come on in and help yourselves', this proposed law change will simply remove the door - and probably sell that as well," he said.
Article from the Herald - Opposition to the Overseas Investment Act
The Government's review of overseas investment rules has been welcomed by the New Zealand International Business Forum (NZIBF) which says not much investment has been coming in over recent years.
"Inward foreign investment can provide capital, expertise and offshore distribution to help New Zealand companies grow and create jobs," said NZIBF executive director Stephen Jacobi.
"Anecdotal evidence suggests that some foreign investors are deterred by our procedures even though most applications are in fact approved."
Jacobi said a review would help streamline procedures to ensure New Zealand was in line with international best practice.
But news of the investment review has not pleased all, with some saying it will only increase the chance of New Zealanders being exploited, rather than helped by overseas money.
Finance Minister Bill English announced the review yesterday, saying it was intended to make the process quicker and less complex.
"The current processes are cumbersome and complex. It takes a long time to make decisions because all the applications have to be measured against 27 different criteria by a pretty legalistic standard," said English.
The Government wanted to retain the opportunity to protect assets and land that it believed needed to be protected, but reduce the cost and complexity of decision making.
He said the Government was not being overwhelmed by applications for investment and this was likely to get worse during the international recession.
- NZPA understands that applications are down 7 per cent.
Law firm Chapman Tripp has also welcomed the review saying while it was important sensitive and culturally or historically valuable land was retained, unnecessary barriers should not be put up to foreign investments that could help the economy.
Green MP Kennedy Graham said simplifying rules was not necessarily a good thing and he was concerned the changes would make it easier for foreign investors to buy up pristine land for uses like golf courses or mining.
"The Government and Act Party seem intent on greater foreign ownership of New Zealand for the sake of uncritical economic growth," said Graham said.
Foreign investment often meant profits going offshore and New Zealand was at risk of being exploited rather than getting the productive investments it wanted, he said.
Spokesman for a group that opposes foreign investment, Murray Horton of Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa, said New Zealand already had one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world.
"If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying "Come On In and Help Yourselves", this proposed law change will simply remove the door (and probably offer it for sale as well)."
Horton said the current global financial crisis might mean the Government's review would not make any difference.
"It seems to have escaped its notice that the global capitalist economy is undergoing a major crisis and that retrenchment and sheer survival are currently higher priorities for many of the very transnational corporations whose dominance of that economy has got us into the mess we're in. "
The global economic crisis was the reason that foreign investment in NZ nearly halved in 2008 (as compared to 07), not because of "red tape" in the approval (read "rubberstamping") process."
Any moves by the new government to further liberalise our overseas investment rules were likely to be locked in to future free trade agreements (FTAs) and so leave a "permanent open-door to foreign investors", according to the anti-corporate globalisation group Arena.
Spokeswoman Jane Kelsey said FTAs such as those recently signed with China, Thailand and Singapore contained "significant provisions around services and investment that promise that New Zealand won't ever tighten up its foreign investment rules".
"Governments don't just give foreign investors free rein for decades ahead, they also give the investors the right to sue the government directly in a secret international court if they regulate
in ways that reduce the invertors' profits."
When Government decides it isn't such as good idea they are told they can't restrict foreign investment because of an FTA, said Kelsey.
"That's what the previous government found when it tried to block the Canadian pension fund's buy up of Auckland Airport. Treasury said the Government couldn't pass legislation to keep the airport in New Zealand hands. It had to use the farcical situation of claiming the strategic asset was 'sensitive rural land' so it could use a loophole in the Singapore-New Zealand FTA."
"At a time when stressed foreign firms are maximising their profits and taking them back home (or collapsing), and when New Zealand maintains a significant current account deficit driven largely by repatriation of profits to overseas interests, why on earth would we want to further open up our investment regime and lock the door on ever going back," said Kelsey.
"Inward foreign investment can provide capital, expertise and offshore distribution to help New Zealand companies grow and create jobs," said NZIBF executive director Stephen Jacobi.
"Anecdotal evidence suggests that some foreign investors are deterred by our procedures even though most applications are in fact approved."
Jacobi said a review would help streamline procedures to ensure New Zealand was in line with international best practice.
But news of the investment review has not pleased all, with some saying it will only increase the chance of New Zealanders being exploited, rather than helped by overseas money.
Finance Minister Bill English announced the review yesterday, saying it was intended to make the process quicker and less complex.
"The current processes are cumbersome and complex. It takes a long time to make decisions because all the applications have to be measured against 27 different criteria by a pretty legalistic standard," said English.
The Government wanted to retain the opportunity to protect assets and land that it believed needed to be protected, but reduce the cost and complexity of decision making.
He said the Government was not being overwhelmed by applications for investment and this was likely to get worse during the international recession.
- NZPA understands that applications are down 7 per cent.
Law firm Chapman Tripp has also welcomed the review saying while it was important sensitive and culturally or historically valuable land was retained, unnecessary barriers should not be put up to foreign investments that could help the economy.
Green MP Kennedy Graham said simplifying rules was not necessarily a good thing and he was concerned the changes would make it easier for foreign investors to buy up pristine land for uses like golf courses or mining.
"The Government and Act Party seem intent on greater foreign ownership of New Zealand for the sake of uncritical economic growth," said Graham said.
Foreign investment often meant profits going offshore and New Zealand was at risk of being exploited rather than getting the productive investments it wanted, he said.
Spokesman for a group that opposes foreign investment, Murray Horton of Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa, said New Zealand already had one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world.
"If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying "Come On In and Help Yourselves", this proposed law change will simply remove the door (and probably offer it for sale as well)."
Horton said the current global financial crisis might mean the Government's review would not make any difference.
"It seems to have escaped its notice that the global capitalist economy is undergoing a major crisis and that retrenchment and sheer survival are currently higher priorities for many of the very transnational corporations whose dominance of that economy has got us into the mess we're in. "
The global economic crisis was the reason that foreign investment in NZ nearly halved in 2008 (as compared to 07), not because of "red tape" in the approval (read "rubberstamping") process."
Any moves by the new government to further liberalise our overseas investment rules were likely to be locked in to future free trade agreements (FTAs) and so leave a "permanent open-door to foreign investors", according to the anti-corporate globalisation group Arena.
Spokeswoman Jane Kelsey said FTAs such as those recently signed with China, Thailand and Singapore contained "significant provisions around services and investment that promise that New Zealand won't ever tighten up its foreign investment rules".
"Governments don't just give foreign investors free rein for decades ahead, they also give the investors the right to sue the government directly in a secret international court if they regulate
in ways that reduce the invertors' profits."
When Government decides it isn't such as good idea they are told they can't restrict foreign investment because of an FTA, said Kelsey.
"That's what the previous government found when it tried to block the Canadian pension fund's buy up of Auckland Airport. Treasury said the Government couldn't pass legislation to keep the airport in New Zealand hands. It had to use the farcical situation of claiming the strategic asset was 'sensitive rural land' so it could use a loophole in the Singapore-New Zealand FTA."
"At a time when stressed foreign firms are maximising their profits and taking them back home (or collapsing), and when New Zealand maintains a significant current account deficit driven largely by repatriation of profits to overseas interests, why on earth would we want to further open up our investment regime and lock the door on ever going back," said Kelsey.
Greens on the Current Review of the Overseas Investment Act
NZ for Sale? For Sure, says English
The current review of overseas investment rules, particularly those around sensitive land suggests that the ACT Party is unduly pushing National Government policy, said Green Party Overseas Investment spokesperson Dr Kennedy Graham.
No part of New Zealand is off-limits in the Government’s upcoming review of overseas investment rules Finance Minister Bill English confirmed today.
Mr English told Parliament in a reply to questions from Dr Graham that land defined as sensitive, such as the seabed and foreshore, would be included in the Government’s review of overseas investment rules.
The Overseas Investment Act 2005 tightened the law on what parts of New Zealand could be purchased by overseas investors – including off-shore islands and any part of the seabed and foreshore.
The policy difference between ACT and National in 2005 was palpable, as Dr Graham pointed out in Parliament today.
At the time John Key thought there was a "genuine concern – and I think a warranted concern from New Zealanders – that we do not want to become tenants in our own country. I think the long-term future for New Zealand is not that of a bunch of people running around serving lattes to foreigners who own our country."
In 2005 ACT stated that foreign investment is "overwhelmingly favourable" for New Zealand and that there is "no evidence that foreigners make poor landowners."
"John Key's view in 2005 was sound," said Dr Graham. "We do need to be careful with our foreign investment. But his 2008 policy is being pushed by his strange ministerial partnership.
Allowing more overseas millionaires to buy precious parts of New Zealand will do nothing to stimulate the economy.
"New Zealand doesn’t have a capital gains tax therefore the Government will gain nothing whatsoever from the sale of land. If an overseas citizen sells their little slice of New Zealand to another overseas citizen, no New Zealander will benefit.
"This review looks guaranteed to do nothing to stimulate the economy but appears more and more a sop the extreme free market dogma of the ACT Party. New Zealanders will gain nothing from this review other than a few more ‘Keep Out’ signs on land they once had access to," said Dr Graham.
Gordon Campbell on the Oversight of the SIS
This evening the new members of Parliament’s committee on the security and intelligence will meet for the first time. John Key, Rodney Hide, Tariana Turia, Phil Goff and Russel Norman have a rare chance to transform one of Parliament’s most embarrassing pieces of tokenism into a oversight committee that is fit and willing to deal with 21st century realities in security gathering and analysis.
To date, this committee has been a joke that meets for only about an hour a year. It lacks the powers of a select committee, and has essentially served as a mechanism by which the SIS and the Prime Minister can keep senior parliamentarians on board with their own agenda on security. In return for being sworn to secrecy, the MPs on the committee get absolutely nothing in return. They don’t get to scrutinise the SIS Director’s version of reality or check his files for accuracy, they can’t summon other witnesses, and they can’t publicly divulge what they have been told.
Such restraints are the relics of a bygone era. Around the world, the events of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion have exposed the shoddiness of much intelligence information and the extent of its overt politicization. At the same time, more and more domestic legislation is taking on a security dimension. Therefore, Parliament needs to play a far more active role in querying the security and intelligence dimensions of legislation. If it was properly resourced - and if it made contact with similar committees in Canada, the UK and Australia – this committee could play a very useful role as one of the state’s few oversight mechanisms on the performance of the security services.
The immediate task before the committee though, is how to handle the SIS spying on Members of Parliament. In his recent report to the Prime Minister, the SIS Inspector-General Paul Neazor recommended - as Scoop had advocated - that such files should be closed once an MP is elected. However, Neazor went on to say that a formula was needed if and when the actions of an MP required such a file to be opened.
Subsequently, Prime Minister John Key – in his capacity as Minister of the SIS – has indicated that he could arrange this in consultation with the Speaker.
This is really not good enough. Plainly, neither the public nor Parliament would be happy if any Prime Minister was allowed to arrange SIS surveillance of his fellow parliamentarians on the simple say so of a Speaker whom he has appointed. Because such spying would infringe on the work of Parliament – and especially on the constituency work of parliamentarians - it needs a much wider, multi-party mandate.
Therefore, the committee members should press tonight for it to be the body that considers and validates any such action. It should not be left to the Prime Minister in a secret arrangement with the Speaker, to give the greenlight to such surveillance. Robert Muldoon, during the Colin Moyle affair, stands as evidence of how a Prime Minister can abuse his access to secret information in order to destroy an opponent’s political career.
Being an MP is a unique occupation, and it requires special treatment. Parliament is the heart of our democracy and should be placed beyond SIS scrutiny. In the normal course of their work, MPs are required to be in contact with people from all walks of life. Their role as arbiters in community disputes and between the public and the bureaucracy requires them to be free to do that work unfettered by being spied upon by the security agencies.
In turn, members of the public need to know they can bring issues to an MP’s attention, without fear of such contact tainting their case by placing them under SIS suspicion. After all, the SIS is free to open a file on private persons of concern, but it should not be allowed to maintain a file on an MP directly - except under quite exceptional conditions that Parliament itself, via its multi-party committee on such matters, has mandated on the basis of evidence placed before one of its meetings.
The new committee is stacked 3 :2 with government appointees. Fittingly though, Tariana Turia has the swing vote. Domestically Maori activists have received an undue degree of SIS attention. As a result, Maori MPs are more likely to be in contact during their constituency work, with people whom the SIS view with concern. For both those reasons, Turia should be at pains tonight to ensure that it is the committee – and not the Prime Minister and Speaker – who gets to authorise any future spying on parliamentarians in general, and on any members of her caucus in particular. An assurance needs to be sought by the committee that any files on current MPs will be closed, immediately.
In future, security and intelligence issues are likely to play a far more important role in legislation. As soon as next week, the Immigration Bill may return to a House that is far different from the one that dealt with this legislation last year. Labour is in opposition, and the Maori Party are now in government. Turia and her caucus will have to decide whether they want to back and to own legislation that will give immigration officers far wider powers of search and detention of Pacific Islanders and Maori, while allowing the bureaucracy to operate under a much thicker blanket of secrecy.
Can Labour credibly oppose this immigration legislation that it fashioned and shepherded through Parliament – despite the misgivings of some in its caucus about the draconian powers it bestows on officials and the state? Since then of course, the Immigration Service has been its own worst enemy. There has been a cascade of revelations about the Immigration Service and its lack of accountability – especially within its Pacific division. This alone should require and justify a rethink by Labour about the wisdom of this Bill, and the desirability of Pacific Island, Maori and migrant communities to the state’s arbitrary exercise of power.Turia of course, should be especially concerned about the Maori Party choosing to rubber stamp this particular government Bill. Only a few years ago, Turia drew attention to the perils of using secret information against an accused – and at the time, she likened the treatment of Ahmed Zaoui to the treatment of Te Whiti in the 1880s. In both cases, Turia argued, people were being denied due process, with their fate decided by an Executive that had ‘necessarily….been influenced by political and economic considerations. That was precisely the case with Te Whiti. He was denied access to the courts. The parallels are strong.”
How can Turia now possibly turn arounbd, and support a Bill that will give immigration officers enhanced powers of detention and search, when she knows so thoroughly the content of the West Coast Protection Act of 1882, and the way that piece of legislation was used against her people ? “ The said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, shall not be tried…[but] it shall be lawful..to keep the said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, in custody at such place as the Governor thinks fit.,..” And to be re-arrested at will.
Maori and Pacific Island communities may need to remind the Maori Party about the content of the Immigration Bill, and the lessons of past and recent history.
The security threat over Afghanistan
The security concerns do not begin and end simply with immigration issues. Thanks to Helen Clark, New Zealand’s role in the war on terrorism has been cleverly tailored to minimize the security threats to this country. We did not take part in the invasion of Iraq, and our role in Afghanistan – once the UN forces had displaced the Taliban government – was limited to reconstruction work in the country’s most peaceful region, and to providing a few desk officers in Kabul.
That may now be about to change. The UN has signalled it wants troops from a wide spectrum of member countries to help with the August election in Afghanistan, and President Obama is switching his military and nation-building focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. Australia has already publicly stated that it expects to be asked to contribute more troops. Are we expecting a similar call –from the US for our special forces, and from the UN for a regular troop contingent to police the Afghan elcction ?
If so, what do the SIS and GCSB consider would be the security repercussions for New Zealand of our more active and visible role in the wider war within Afghanistan ? Tonight, the committee should be readying an invitation to SIS chief Warren Tucker for him to give them a briefing on this situation. Party leaders need to have such a perspective – preferably before the call for such a deployment decision arises, and not afterwards.
Other issues the committee should address ? The availability of personal files. Under a general policy of greater openness, what steps are the SIS taking to make personal files more fully accessible ? Can the public – and archivists and historians – expect that the SIS will release its files into the public domain more quickly and thoroughly ? In other jurisdictions like the US, files from the 70s and 80s are being released. Here, the SIS is only grudgingly and partially releasing information from the 1950s and 1960s. Why is it dragging its feet ?
In other words, there is plenty for the committee to seek from the security agencies – that is, if it wants to be more than just a passive audience whenever the SIS decides to pop in for a cup of tea. Patently, the SIS need close oversight. It was only when foreign experts, like Colonel Mohammed Samraoui came here to testify for Ahmed Zaoui that the outright errors and shoddy analysis carried out by the SIS were exposed - at the cumulative cost of millions to the taxpayer, much damage to the country’s reputation and considerable suffering to all involved. Someone needs to hold these people to account.
All, in all, it should be an interesting committee meeting tonight. Even Rodney Hide, who paints himself as such a staunch foe of waste and unfettered state power, should be willing to give the committee some teeth.
To date, this committee has been a joke that meets for only about an hour a year. It lacks the powers of a select committee, and has essentially served as a mechanism by which the SIS and the Prime Minister can keep senior parliamentarians on board with their own agenda on security. In return for being sworn to secrecy, the MPs on the committee get absolutely nothing in return. They don’t get to scrutinise the SIS Director’s version of reality or check his files for accuracy, they can’t summon other witnesses, and they can’t publicly divulge what they have been told.
Such restraints are the relics of a bygone era. Around the world, the events of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion have exposed the shoddiness of much intelligence information and the extent of its overt politicization. At the same time, more and more domestic legislation is taking on a security dimension. Therefore, Parliament needs to play a far more active role in querying the security and intelligence dimensions of legislation. If it was properly resourced - and if it made contact with similar committees in Canada, the UK and Australia – this committee could play a very useful role as one of the state’s few oversight mechanisms on the performance of the security services.
The immediate task before the committee though, is how to handle the SIS spying on Members of Parliament. In his recent report to the Prime Minister, the SIS Inspector-General Paul Neazor recommended - as Scoop had advocated - that such files should be closed once an MP is elected. However, Neazor went on to say that a formula was needed if and when the actions of an MP required such a file to be opened.
Subsequently, Prime Minister John Key – in his capacity as Minister of the SIS – has indicated that he could arrange this in consultation with the Speaker.
This is really not good enough. Plainly, neither the public nor Parliament would be happy if any Prime Minister was allowed to arrange SIS surveillance of his fellow parliamentarians on the simple say so of a Speaker whom he has appointed. Because such spying would infringe on the work of Parliament – and especially on the constituency work of parliamentarians - it needs a much wider, multi-party mandate.
Therefore, the committee members should press tonight for it to be the body that considers and validates any such action. It should not be left to the Prime Minister in a secret arrangement with the Speaker, to give the greenlight to such surveillance. Robert Muldoon, during the Colin Moyle affair, stands as evidence of how a Prime Minister can abuse his access to secret information in order to destroy an opponent’s political career.
Being an MP is a unique occupation, and it requires special treatment. Parliament is the heart of our democracy and should be placed beyond SIS scrutiny. In the normal course of their work, MPs are required to be in contact with people from all walks of life. Their role as arbiters in community disputes and between the public and the bureaucracy requires them to be free to do that work unfettered by being spied upon by the security agencies.
In turn, members of the public need to know they can bring issues to an MP’s attention, without fear of such contact tainting their case by placing them under SIS suspicion. After all, the SIS is free to open a file on private persons of concern, but it should not be allowed to maintain a file on an MP directly - except under quite exceptional conditions that Parliament itself, via its multi-party committee on such matters, has mandated on the basis of evidence placed before one of its meetings.
The new committee is stacked 3 :2 with government appointees. Fittingly though, Tariana Turia has the swing vote. Domestically Maori activists have received an undue degree of SIS attention. As a result, Maori MPs are more likely to be in contact during their constituency work, with people whom the SIS view with concern. For both those reasons, Turia should be at pains tonight to ensure that it is the committee – and not the Prime Minister and Speaker – who gets to authorise any future spying on parliamentarians in general, and on any members of her caucus in particular. An assurance needs to be sought by the committee that any files on current MPs will be closed, immediately.
In future, security and intelligence issues are likely to play a far more important role in legislation. As soon as next week, the Immigration Bill may return to a House that is far different from the one that dealt with this legislation last year. Labour is in opposition, and the Maori Party are now in government. Turia and her caucus will have to decide whether they want to back and to own legislation that will give immigration officers far wider powers of search and detention of Pacific Islanders and Maori, while allowing the bureaucracy to operate under a much thicker blanket of secrecy.
Can Labour credibly oppose this immigration legislation that it fashioned and shepherded through Parliament – despite the misgivings of some in its caucus about the draconian powers it bestows on officials and the state? Since then of course, the Immigration Service has been its own worst enemy. There has been a cascade of revelations about the Immigration Service and its lack of accountability – especially within its Pacific division. This alone should require and justify a rethink by Labour about the wisdom of this Bill, and the desirability of Pacific Island, Maori and migrant communities to the state’s arbitrary exercise of power.Turia of course, should be especially concerned about the Maori Party choosing to rubber stamp this particular government Bill. Only a few years ago, Turia drew attention to the perils of using secret information against an accused – and at the time, she likened the treatment of Ahmed Zaoui to the treatment of Te Whiti in the 1880s. In both cases, Turia argued, people were being denied due process, with their fate decided by an Executive that had ‘necessarily….been influenced by political and economic considerations. That was precisely the case with Te Whiti. He was denied access to the courts. The parallels are strong.”
How can Turia now possibly turn arounbd, and support a Bill that will give immigration officers enhanced powers of detention and search, when she knows so thoroughly the content of the West Coast Protection Act of 1882, and the way that piece of legislation was used against her people ? “ The said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, shall not be tried…[but] it shall be lawful..to keep the said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, in custody at such place as the Governor thinks fit.,..” And to be re-arrested at will.
Maori and Pacific Island communities may need to remind the Maori Party about the content of the Immigration Bill, and the lessons of past and recent history.
The security threat over Afghanistan
The security concerns do not begin and end simply with immigration issues. Thanks to Helen Clark, New Zealand’s role in the war on terrorism has been cleverly tailored to minimize the security threats to this country. We did not take part in the invasion of Iraq, and our role in Afghanistan – once the UN forces had displaced the Taliban government – was limited to reconstruction work in the country’s most peaceful region, and to providing a few desk officers in Kabul.
That may now be about to change. The UN has signalled it wants troops from a wide spectrum of member countries to help with the August election in Afghanistan, and President Obama is switching his military and nation-building focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. Australia has already publicly stated that it expects to be asked to contribute more troops. Are we expecting a similar call –from the US for our special forces, and from the UN for a regular troop contingent to police the Afghan elcction ?
If so, what do the SIS and GCSB consider would be the security repercussions for New Zealand of our more active and visible role in the wider war within Afghanistan ? Tonight, the committee should be readying an invitation to SIS chief Warren Tucker for him to give them a briefing on this situation. Party leaders need to have such a perspective – preferably before the call for such a deployment decision arises, and not afterwards.
Other issues the committee should address ? The availability of personal files. Under a general policy of greater openness, what steps are the SIS taking to make personal files more fully accessible ? Can the public – and archivists and historians – expect that the SIS will release its files into the public domain more quickly and thoroughly ? In other jurisdictions like the US, files from the 70s and 80s are being released. Here, the SIS is only grudgingly and partially releasing information from the 1950s and 1960s. Why is it dragging its feet ?
In other words, there is plenty for the committee to seek from the security agencies – that is, if it wants to be more than just a passive audience whenever the SIS decides to pop in for a cup of tea. Patently, the SIS need close oversight. It was only when foreign experts, like Colonel Mohammed Samraoui came here to testify for Ahmed Zaoui that the outright errors and shoddy analysis carried out by the SIS were exposed - at the cumulative cost of millions to the taxpayer, much damage to the country’s reputation and considerable suffering to all involved. Someone needs to hold these people to account.
All, in all, it should be an interesting committee meeting tonight. Even Rodney Hide, who paints himself as such a staunch foe of waste and unfettered state power, should be willing to give the committee some teeth.
More SIS Files - this time Trade Unionist Paul Corliss
Transport Worker (Rail and Maritime Workers Union), March 2009
Our esteemed ex-industrial officer, Paul Corliss, has just been “gifted” most of his SIS files. They make interesting and revealing reading – most of which comes as a surprise to Paul.
Apparently the SIS have not just taken a cloak-and-dagger, and boring, interest in my activity within the wider trade union movement (e. g. the FOL and the NZCTU) and in my political protest activity (e. g. opposition to foreign ownership in NZ or the 1981 anti-apartheid arrests) but have closely followed my alleged ‘career’ with the constituent unions of the later RMTU – over some two decades from 1974 to the 1990s.
It appears bizarre but clear that among earlier railway workmates there was at least one SIS ‘informant’ (possibly called “LAWRENCE” - whether Christian name or surname is unknown to me) reporting me as a “troublemaker to railways management” when working as a shunter and an official of the National Union of Railwaymen. That explains why I never got promoted to Station Agent at Opua!
It additionally alleges then National President of the NUR, George Finlayson, had claimed SUP influence in the Canterbury NUR.
Whacko, I say.
Among a wide range of material, the files note our most excellent protest when, in 1983, we (some 250 rail workers) physically prevented Minister of Railways George Gair’s attempts to enter the Christchurch railway station and demanded his ministerial resignation.
Much of the declassified material (most stamped ‘Secret’) relates to union activities, all of which were publically discoverable to anyone with a subscription to the daily papers or an ear on the radio.
They then followed me onto the wharves at Lyttelton when I took up my job as secretary of the Harbour Workers Union, but don’t appear to have pursued my industrial officer activity with the Rail & Maritime Union from 1995 onward. Perhaps I had become ‘too establishment’, not making enough trouble?
Dr Tucker advises, in his pleasant and personalised 4 page covering-letter, that the SIS are with-holding a further six reports on me, on the basis that their release could “enable the identification of secret sources of information”.
Access to my file occurred as a result of a ‘user-friendly’ PR campaign, (including declassification of historical files) entered into by recent appointee to the SIS directorship, Dr Warren Tucker. To become a “subject of interest” to our spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service, I believe one of the pre-requisites is to “pose a demonstrable risk to the security of New Zealand”. The debate about Big Brother and freedoms in a democracy require more space than the Transport Worker provides.
As far as I am aware, I have never been a member of any organisation that has plotted to overthrow or terrorise New Zealand … though I must admit to having been occasionally tempted! I have been a member of several legal organisations that have attempted, sometimes successfully, to dissent with and change many aspects of the way New Zealand operates politically and industrially.
Perhaps surprisingly, I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party. While there are surely one or two people who don’t particularly like me, I am not an ‘enemy of the state’. I can only just manage to spell ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Osama’. Are these sufficient reasons to make me subject to covert surveillance and monitoring as a “suspect” individual?
Apparently so.
Our esteemed ex-industrial officer, Paul Corliss, has just been “gifted” most of his SIS files. They make interesting and revealing reading – most of which comes as a surprise to Paul.
Apparently the SIS have not just taken a cloak-and-dagger, and boring, interest in my activity within the wider trade union movement (e. g. the FOL and the NZCTU) and in my political protest activity (e. g. opposition to foreign ownership in NZ or the 1981 anti-apartheid arrests) but have closely followed my alleged ‘career’ with the constituent unions of the later RMTU – over some two decades from 1974 to the 1990s.
It appears bizarre but clear that among earlier railway workmates there was at least one SIS ‘informant’ (possibly called “LAWRENCE” - whether Christian name or surname is unknown to me) reporting me as a “troublemaker to railways management” when working as a shunter and an official of the National Union of Railwaymen. That explains why I never got promoted to Station Agent at Opua!
It additionally alleges then National President of the NUR, George Finlayson, had claimed SUP influence in the Canterbury NUR.
Whacko, I say.
Among a wide range of material, the files note our most excellent protest when, in 1983, we (some 250 rail workers) physically prevented Minister of Railways George Gair’s attempts to enter the Christchurch railway station and demanded his ministerial resignation.
Much of the declassified material (most stamped ‘Secret’) relates to union activities, all of which were publically discoverable to anyone with a subscription to the daily papers or an ear on the radio.
They then followed me onto the wharves at Lyttelton when I took up my job as secretary of the Harbour Workers Union, but don’t appear to have pursued my industrial officer activity with the Rail & Maritime Union from 1995 onward. Perhaps I had become ‘too establishment’, not making enough trouble?
Dr Tucker advises, in his pleasant and personalised 4 page covering-letter, that the SIS are with-holding a further six reports on me, on the basis that their release could “enable the identification of secret sources of information”.
Access to my file occurred as a result of a ‘user-friendly’ PR campaign, (including declassification of historical files) entered into by recent appointee to the SIS directorship, Dr Warren Tucker. To become a “subject of interest” to our spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service, I believe one of the pre-requisites is to “pose a demonstrable risk to the security of New Zealand”. The debate about Big Brother and freedoms in a democracy require more space than the Transport Worker provides.
As far as I am aware, I have never been a member of any organisation that has plotted to overthrow or terrorise New Zealand … though I must admit to having been occasionally tempted! I have been a member of several legal organisations that have attempted, sometimes successfully, to dissent with and change many aspects of the way New Zealand operates politically and industrially.
Perhaps surprisingly, I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party. While there are surely one or two people who don’t particularly like me, I am not an ‘enemy of the state’. I can only just manage to spell ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Osama’. Are these sufficient reasons to make me subject to covert surveillance and monitoring as a “suspect” individual?
Apparently so.
04 April 2009
SIS spying on MP's
Below is an article about the spying on MP's by the SIS
Editorial: MPs are not above suspicion
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 23/03/2009
Green MP Keith Locke should be used to intelligence agencies taking an interest in his activities. One of the Security Intellligence Service's predecessors first opened a file on him in 1955 when he was 10 years old. Nevertheless, Mr Locke is entitled to feel aggrieved about the SIS's scrutiny, The Dominion Post writes.
Mr Locke, the son of well-known communists Elsie and Jack Locke, has a long history of championing dubious causes. Even he admits he was wrong to hail the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But there is nothing on the public record that shows Mr Locke has ever presented more of a danger to the public than to himself.
The material added to his file since he became an MP in 1999 suggests there is little, if anything, in his private affairs for the public to be concerned about either.
According to Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor, it includes: a note of a discussion he and another MP had with the service, a reference to a parliamentary speech, four newspaper clippings which Judge Neazor found to have no security significance, a document related to an overseas trip taken by the Green MP and the programme of a symposium at which Mr Locke spoke.
Judge Neazor also reported that he had found one "certainly unprofessional" notation that lent weight to Mr Locke's belief that at least some of the material on his file had been gathered because of his critical stance in Parliament towards intelligence issues.
That is a bigger cause for concern than Mr Locke's misplaced sympathies. The SIS has powers denied other organs of the state because of the serious nature of its responsibilities, but it is not entitled to use its resources to gather intelligence for political purposes in this case to embarrass or belittle a critic.
An outraged Mr Locke says the service should be prohibited from holding files on sitting MPs, that there should be no surveillance of MPs, except to support a criminal investigation, and that MPs' communications with constituents a broad concept that encompasses every New Zealand resident for list MPs such as him should be off-limits to the security services.
He goes too far. The SIS may have wasted time and resources monitoring his activities, but there is no reason why MPs should be treated differently from the rest of the population.
As Judge Neazor rightly points out, any regime has to take account of the "unpalatable" possibility that an MP might involve himself in activities that endanger national security.
Judge Neazor's suggestion that the security services be required to seek the permission of Parliament's Speaker before collecting information on MPs strikes the appropriate balance between parliamentary independence and security.
Parliamentarians should be free to go about their duties uninhibited by the security agencies, but the law has to guard against all eventualities.
Mr Locke should consider whether he would want members of an extreme Right-wing organisation given the protections he advocates, should it gain representation in Parliament.
Editorial: MPs are not above suspicion
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 23/03/2009
Green MP Keith Locke should be used to intelligence agencies taking an interest in his activities. One of the Security Intellligence Service's predecessors first opened a file on him in 1955 when he was 10 years old. Nevertheless, Mr Locke is entitled to feel aggrieved about the SIS's scrutiny, The Dominion Post writes.
Mr Locke, the son of well-known communists Elsie and Jack Locke, has a long history of championing dubious causes. Even he admits he was wrong to hail the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But there is nothing on the public record that shows Mr Locke has ever presented more of a danger to the public than to himself.
The material added to his file since he became an MP in 1999 suggests there is little, if anything, in his private affairs for the public to be concerned about either.
According to Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor, it includes: a note of a discussion he and another MP had with the service, a reference to a parliamentary speech, four newspaper clippings which Judge Neazor found to have no security significance, a document related to an overseas trip taken by the Green MP and the programme of a symposium at which Mr Locke spoke.
Judge Neazor also reported that he had found one "certainly unprofessional" notation that lent weight to Mr Locke's belief that at least some of the material on his file had been gathered because of his critical stance in Parliament towards intelligence issues.
That is a bigger cause for concern than Mr Locke's misplaced sympathies. The SIS has powers denied other organs of the state because of the serious nature of its responsibilities, but it is not entitled to use its resources to gather intelligence for political purposes in this case to embarrass or belittle a critic.
An outraged Mr Locke says the service should be prohibited from holding files on sitting MPs, that there should be no surveillance of MPs, except to support a criminal investigation, and that MPs' communications with constituents a broad concept that encompasses every New Zealand resident for list MPs such as him should be off-limits to the security services.
He goes too far. The SIS may have wasted time and resources monitoring his activities, but there is no reason why MPs should be treated differently from the rest of the population.
As Judge Neazor rightly points out, any regime has to take account of the "unpalatable" possibility that an MP might involve himself in activities that endanger national security.
Judge Neazor's suggestion that the security services be required to seek the permission of Parliament's Speaker before collecting information on MPs strikes the appropriate balance between parliamentary independence and security.
Parliamentarians should be free to go about their duties uninhibited by the security agencies, but the law has to guard against all eventualities.
Mr Locke should consider whether he would want members of an extreme Right-wing organisation given the protections he advocates, should it gain representation in Parliament.
Finlay McDonald on Overseas Investment Act
Bending over backwards for foreign coin
By FINLAY McDONALD - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 13:19 22/03/2009
When governments announce a "review" of some piece of policy or legislation you know what it really means: we're out to change this but, for appearances' sake, we'll go through the motions of inviting submissions and "opening it up for discussion".
If you doubt this, just wait for the "outcome" of the government's review of our overseas investment regime.
When I heard Bill English announce it, I almost laughed. After all, New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment regimes in the developed world. Claiming it needs further liberalisation is akin to saying bullrush has too many rules.
Or as Murray Horton of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa put it with characteristic wit: "If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying 'Come On In and Help Yourselves', this proposed law change will simply remove the door - and probably offer it for sale as well."
As usual, though, the cheerleaders of deregulation were pretending such an overhaul was vital for the public good. The head of the New Zealand International Business Forum offered this piece of highly researched wisdom: "Anecdotal evidence suggests that some foreign investors are deterred by our procedures even though most applications are in fact approved."
Say what? So just in case there are some impatient buyers out there who won't even form an orderly queue to snap up the local bargains, we should get that rubber stamp moving still faster . . . so sorry to have kept you waiting, sir!
And rubber-stamping it is. Before it was folded into Land Information New Zealand, the Overseas Investment Commission acted like a hotel doorman, ushering in everyone from billionaire kleptocrats shopping for scenery to multi- nationals in the market for repatriated profits.
In this the commission was ably assisted by laws designed to ease the process. The previous Labour government's Overseas Investment Act in 2005 bumped up the threshold for foreign buyers needing official approval from $50 million to $100m. If there was anything positive in that legislation it lay in marginally increased protection against foreigners buying land of "special heritage or environmental value". This was largely a sop to that annoying sentimental streak in many New Zealanders, who don't like the idea of flogging off bits of their birthright to any old Tommy Suharto, let alone Dick or Harry.
But while land sales have immediate symbolic resonance, it's the wholesale buying up of our commercial assets that the system has truly enabled. Since we put out the welcome mat in the 1980s, nearly half the sharemarket has fallen into foreign hands and nearly all of our major companies are substantially or totally foreign controlled. Billions in dividends and profits have flown offshore since.
Overseas investment rules are themselves part of a bigger picture - free trade deals and our bipartisan commitment to Gatt form the framework within which we are almost obliged to hustle for foreign money. The textbook justification for this, of course, is that capital, expertise and access to bigger markets flow in with the cash. Jobs and growth are created, we become part of the great global economy whose benefits should be obvious to all.
In truth, the massive hikes in foreign investment and ownership over the past decades have done little to improve our lot. New Zealanders have become increasingly indentured to foreign masters, working harder and longer for less. This is the process the current government wants to make even more "efficient".
So where's the outcry? Maybe the Maori Party will draw another line in the sand over mana whenua - if they're not too busy doing private prison deals with their new mates, that is. Don't expect much noise from Labour. It would be an act of considerable philosophical contortionism if they were to repudiate the essence of the very legislation they nurtured to its present state.
No, unless public sentiment is roused sufficiently by the prospect of another Auckland airport or similarly strategic asset being put on the block, review will duly become reality and, by the time the global economy picks up again, our overseas investment express lane will be open for business.
By FINLAY McDONALD - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 13:19 22/03/2009
When governments announce a "review" of some piece of policy or legislation you know what it really means: we're out to change this but, for appearances' sake, we'll go through the motions of inviting submissions and "opening it up for discussion".
If you doubt this, just wait for the "outcome" of the government's review of our overseas investment regime.
When I heard Bill English announce it, I almost laughed. After all, New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment regimes in the developed world. Claiming it needs further liberalisation is akin to saying bullrush has too many rules.
Or as Murray Horton of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa put it with characteristic wit: "If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying 'Come On In and Help Yourselves', this proposed law change will simply remove the door - and probably offer it for sale as well."
As usual, though, the cheerleaders of deregulation were pretending such an overhaul was vital for the public good. The head of the New Zealand International Business Forum offered this piece of highly researched wisdom: "Anecdotal evidence suggests that some foreign investors are deterred by our procedures even though most applications are in fact approved."
Say what? So just in case there are some impatient buyers out there who won't even form an orderly queue to snap up the local bargains, we should get that rubber stamp moving still faster . . . so sorry to have kept you waiting, sir!
And rubber-stamping it is. Before it was folded into Land Information New Zealand, the Overseas Investment Commission acted like a hotel doorman, ushering in everyone from billionaire kleptocrats shopping for scenery to multi- nationals in the market for repatriated profits.
In this the commission was ably assisted by laws designed to ease the process. The previous Labour government's Overseas Investment Act in 2005 bumped up the threshold for foreign buyers needing official approval from $50 million to $100m. If there was anything positive in that legislation it lay in marginally increased protection against foreigners buying land of "special heritage or environmental value". This was largely a sop to that annoying sentimental streak in many New Zealanders, who don't like the idea of flogging off bits of their birthright to any old Tommy Suharto, let alone Dick or Harry.
But while land sales have immediate symbolic resonance, it's the wholesale buying up of our commercial assets that the system has truly enabled. Since we put out the welcome mat in the 1980s, nearly half the sharemarket has fallen into foreign hands and nearly all of our major companies are substantially or totally foreign controlled. Billions in dividends and profits have flown offshore since.
Overseas investment rules are themselves part of a bigger picture - free trade deals and our bipartisan commitment to Gatt form the framework within which we are almost obliged to hustle for foreign money. The textbook justification for this, of course, is that capital, expertise and access to bigger markets flow in with the cash. Jobs and growth are created, we become part of the great global economy whose benefits should be obvious to all.
In truth, the massive hikes in foreign investment and ownership over the past decades have done little to improve our lot. New Zealanders have become increasingly indentured to foreign masters, working harder and longer for less. This is the process the current government wants to make even more "efficient".
So where's the outcry? Maybe the Maori Party will draw another line in the sand over mana whenua - if they're not too busy doing private prison deals with their new mates, that is. Don't expect much noise from Labour. It would be an act of considerable philosophical contortionism if they were to repudiate the essence of the very legislation they nurtured to its present state.
No, unless public sentiment is roused sufficiently by the prospect of another Auckland airport or similarly strategic asset being put on the block, review will duly become reality and, by the time the global economy picks up again, our overseas investment express lane will be open for business.
Australian PM Attacks Right To Protest At Pine Gad Spy Base
Australia: Rudd government attacks right to protest at Pine Gap spy base
By Mike Head - wsws.org20 March 2009
Without any publicity or public debate, the Rudd government has pushed through parliament a law to step up the protection of the joint US-Australian military spy base at Pine Gap in central Australia, ensuring that protesters will face up to seven years' jail if they go near or even photograph the facility.
Under the seemingly innocuous title of the Defence Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2009, the legislation passed by the Senate on March 11 also seeks to prevent protesters from arguing in court that the base plays a critical role in the aggression and war crimes committed by the US and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Previously, the legislation required the defence minister to declare Pine Gap, or any other area, a "prohibited area" if "necessary for the purposes of the defence of the Commonwealth". Now the Act itself defines Pine Gap as a "special defence undertaking" and a "prohibited area" necessary for the defence of Australia, stopping anyone charged under the Act from challenging the "purposes" of the base in court.
Anyone entering or flying over the base (or any other area that the defence minister proclaims a prohibited area) faces up to seven years' imprisonment. The same penalty applies to someone who makes or obtains "a photograph, sketch, plan, model, article, note or other document of, or relating to" the base, or anything within its perimeter.
The immediate purpose of the legislation is to negate a ruling by the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal last year throwing out the main charges against four Christian pacifists who protested at Pine Gap in 2005. The four had entered the perimeter of the base with the avowed purpose of conducting a "citizen's inspection" to highlight the facility's role in enabling missile attacks on the people of Iraq.
For the first time in history, the Howard government, through its Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, invoked the obscure Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 to prosecute the antiwar demonstrators for entering a prohibited area. Jim Dowling, Adele Goldie, Donna Mulhearn and Bryan Law were originally tried and convicted in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in June 2007. Even though the judge had barred the defendants from arguing that the base was used for aggressive war-making, not "defence", a jury took five hours to convict them, reflecting public opposition to the Iraq war.
The four faced jail for up to seven years for entering Pine Gap and another seven years for taking photographs in the area without authority. The Howard government, through the prosecution, called for their imprisonment for endangering national security. Instead, the judge fined them between $450 and $1,350 each, a total of some $3,500. The protesters refused to pay the fines and served time in custody for nonpayment.
When the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against the leniency of the sentences, the government's legal operation backfired. The four were acquitted because the higher court found that they had been wrongly denied their right, under the 1952 Act, to challenge at their trial whether or not the declaration of a prohibited area was "necessary for the purposes of the defence of the Commonwealth".
The four had intended to produce evidence and expert witnesses to prove that the base was not defensive and that the Australian government was involved in "crimes against humanity" because data from Pine Gap was being used for lethal purposes against civilians, right down to the Apache helicopter gunships that attacked homes in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.
The wider purpose of the federal Labor government's newly passed Bill, which has amended the 1952 Act, is to intimidate and stifle protests against the controversial 40-year-old base and the Australia-US military alliance in general. Pine Gap's role has been significantly enhanced in recent years, firstly through its capacity to guide US missile attacks in the Middle East and Central Asia, and secondly through its part in the so-called missile defence shield being developed by Washington to ensure that it has first-strike capacity against its nuclear rivals, notably Russia and China.
With its 14 giant white domes and 12 other antennae, and more than 800 US and Australian staff, including from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pine Gap is one of the most important intelligence facilities in the world. In addition to monitoring and directing missiles, it receives signals from spy satellites and conducts eavesdropping of telephone calls and other telecommunications.
Because of Australia's geographic location, Pine Gap provides unique coverage of a part of the planet that is necessary for a global satellite monitoring system and also includes some of the most hotly contested strategic locations in Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific region. The base is one of three similar facilities around the world, with the other two at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado and Menwith Hill in Britain.
When Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon first introduced the amending Bill last December, he emphasised the facility's "collection of intelligence" and "provision of ballistic missile early warning information". He echoed the Howard government's last defence minister, Brendan Nelson, who told parliament in September 2007, on the fortieth anniversary of the base, that it was part of the US ballistic missile early warning program and could supply information to Washington's anti-missile shield project, which is proceeding despite opposition from Russia and China
Fitzgibbon added that those exercising their democratic right to protest against the base were "mischief makers" or had "more sinister intent". Fitzgibbon declared that Pine Gap was of "such sensitivity and importance to Australia's defence and external relations" that it was essential to "deter" such people.
During the brief debates in parliament, government MPs insisted that the Bill was not about infringing on the right to peaceful protest. In fact, that is its sole purpose. Anyone trying to break into the base or disrupt its operations could be charged with a range of other serious offences. They include trespass and damaging property under the Commonwealth Crimes Act (the Christian pacifists were also convicted on those charges), and sabotage, espionage and terrorism—charges that carry punishments of up to life imprisonment.
By launching the unprecedented prosecution of the four pacifists under the 55-year-old Defence (Special Undertakings) Act, the Howard government underlined its devotion to the US military alliance, and willingness to trample over free speech and other basic democratic rights. By closing the legal loophole revealed last year, the Rudd government has demonstrated it is no less committed to the same agenda.
In parliament, the Australian Greens opposed the amendment, and cast the only votes against it in the Senate. Their spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said it represented "an erosion of the democratic rights of which Australians are proud". However, Ludlam suggested that if the base was truly necessary to "protect Australians," then its role could be legitimate. He specifically objected to the fact that Australian MPs were denied information about the base that was freely available to members of the US Congress.
Whether the base is effectively controlled by the US, or is, as successive governments have claimed, a joint facility, Pine Gap directly serves the military and strategic interests of the Australian capitalist elite, which depends heavily on the US alliance in order to dominate its own sphere of interest in the Asia-Pacific area. Together with the deployment of Australian troops to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf, Pine Gap is a critical part of the bargain with Washington that enables Canberra to throw its weight around the region. This is no less the case now that Rudd has replaced Howard, and Obama has replaced Bush.
By Mike Head - wsws.org20 March 2009
Without any publicity or public debate, the Rudd government has pushed through parliament a law to step up the protection of the joint US-Australian military spy base at Pine Gap in central Australia, ensuring that protesters will face up to seven years' jail if they go near or even photograph the facility.
Under the seemingly innocuous title of the Defence Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2009, the legislation passed by the Senate on March 11 also seeks to prevent protesters from arguing in court that the base plays a critical role in the aggression and war crimes committed by the US and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Previously, the legislation required the defence minister to declare Pine Gap, or any other area, a "prohibited area" if "necessary for the purposes of the defence of the Commonwealth". Now the Act itself defines Pine Gap as a "special defence undertaking" and a "prohibited area" necessary for the defence of Australia, stopping anyone charged under the Act from challenging the "purposes" of the base in court.
Anyone entering or flying over the base (or any other area that the defence minister proclaims a prohibited area) faces up to seven years' imprisonment. The same penalty applies to someone who makes or obtains "a photograph, sketch, plan, model, article, note or other document of, or relating to" the base, or anything within its perimeter.
The immediate purpose of the legislation is to negate a ruling by the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal last year throwing out the main charges against four Christian pacifists who protested at Pine Gap in 2005. The four had entered the perimeter of the base with the avowed purpose of conducting a "citizen's inspection" to highlight the facility's role in enabling missile attacks on the people of Iraq.
For the first time in history, the Howard government, through its Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, invoked the obscure Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 to prosecute the antiwar demonstrators for entering a prohibited area. Jim Dowling, Adele Goldie, Donna Mulhearn and Bryan Law were originally tried and convicted in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in June 2007. Even though the judge had barred the defendants from arguing that the base was used for aggressive war-making, not "defence", a jury took five hours to convict them, reflecting public opposition to the Iraq war.
The four faced jail for up to seven years for entering Pine Gap and another seven years for taking photographs in the area without authority. The Howard government, through the prosecution, called for their imprisonment for endangering national security. Instead, the judge fined them between $450 and $1,350 each, a total of some $3,500. The protesters refused to pay the fines and served time in custody for nonpayment.
When the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against the leniency of the sentences, the government's legal operation backfired. The four were acquitted because the higher court found that they had been wrongly denied their right, under the 1952 Act, to challenge at their trial whether or not the declaration of a prohibited area was "necessary for the purposes of the defence of the Commonwealth".
The four had intended to produce evidence and expert witnesses to prove that the base was not defensive and that the Australian government was involved in "crimes against humanity" because data from Pine Gap was being used for lethal purposes against civilians, right down to the Apache helicopter gunships that attacked homes in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.
The wider purpose of the federal Labor government's newly passed Bill, which has amended the 1952 Act, is to intimidate and stifle protests against the controversial 40-year-old base and the Australia-US military alliance in general. Pine Gap's role has been significantly enhanced in recent years, firstly through its capacity to guide US missile attacks in the Middle East and Central Asia, and secondly through its part in the so-called missile defence shield being developed by Washington to ensure that it has first-strike capacity against its nuclear rivals, notably Russia and China.
With its 14 giant white domes and 12 other antennae, and more than 800 US and Australian staff, including from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pine Gap is one of the most important intelligence facilities in the world. In addition to monitoring and directing missiles, it receives signals from spy satellites and conducts eavesdropping of telephone calls and other telecommunications.
Because of Australia's geographic location, Pine Gap provides unique coverage of a part of the planet that is necessary for a global satellite monitoring system and also includes some of the most hotly contested strategic locations in Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific region. The base is one of three similar facilities around the world, with the other two at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado and Menwith Hill in Britain.
When Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon first introduced the amending Bill last December, he emphasised the facility's "collection of intelligence" and "provision of ballistic missile early warning information". He echoed the Howard government's last defence minister, Brendan Nelson, who told parliament in September 2007, on the fortieth anniversary of the base, that it was part of the US ballistic missile early warning program and could supply information to Washington's anti-missile shield project, which is proceeding despite opposition from Russia and China
Fitzgibbon added that those exercising their democratic right to protest against the base were "mischief makers" or had "more sinister intent". Fitzgibbon declared that Pine Gap was of "such sensitivity and importance to Australia's defence and external relations" that it was essential to "deter" such people.
During the brief debates in parliament, government MPs insisted that the Bill was not about infringing on the right to peaceful protest. In fact, that is its sole purpose. Anyone trying to break into the base or disrupt its operations could be charged with a range of other serious offences. They include trespass and damaging property under the Commonwealth Crimes Act (the Christian pacifists were also convicted on those charges), and sabotage, espionage and terrorism—charges that carry punishments of up to life imprisonment.
By launching the unprecedented prosecution of the four pacifists under the 55-year-old Defence (Special Undertakings) Act, the Howard government underlined its devotion to the US military alliance, and willingness to trample over free speech and other basic democratic rights. By closing the legal loophole revealed last year, the Rudd government has demonstrated it is no less committed to the same agenda.
In parliament, the Australian Greens opposed the amendment, and cast the only votes against it in the Senate. Their spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said it represented "an erosion of the democratic rights of which Australians are proud". However, Ludlam suggested that if the base was truly necessary to "protect Australians," then its role could be legitimate. He specifically objected to the fact that Australian MPs were denied information about the base that was freely available to members of the US Congress.
Whether the base is effectively controlled by the US, or is, as successive governments have claimed, a joint facility, Pine Gap directly serves the military and strategic interests of the Australian capitalist elite, which depends heavily on the US alliance in order to dominate its own sphere of interest in the Asia-Pacific area. Together with the deployment of Australian troops to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf, Pine Gap is a critical part of the bargain with Washington that enables Canberra to throw its weight around the region. This is no less the case now that Rudd has replaced Howard, and Obama has replaced Bush.
Greens Press Release on Overseas Investment Act
Dr Kennedy Graham
The Government seems keen to put the 'For Sale' sign up on land that is currently off-limits to foreign investment, said Green Party MP Dr Kennedy Graham.
Finance Minister Bill English this afternoon attacked the rules around foreign investment as too complex for business. Of particular concern to Mr English was the fact that processing a sensitive land application involves the assessment of 27 different criteria and factors.
"There is a reason that rules around overseas investment in sensitive land is complex – we don’t necessarily want overseas investors buying large chunks of pristine New Zealand land and turning them into golf courses or amusement parks – or coal mines" said Green Party’s Foreign Investment Spokesperson Dr Graham.
"The Government and Act seem intent on greater foreign ownership of New Zealand for the sake of uncritical economic growth. However, when New Zealand firms fall into foreign ownership, dividend payments flow offshore further worsening our current account deficit. "
"Passive investment into New Zealand should not be confused with productive investment. The former simply exploits our country's productive capacity doing nothing to enhance our productivity. New Zealand if anything actually needs smarter foreign investment rules not weaker ones as National is proposing," said Dr Graham.
The recent jobs summit and the calls for regulatory reform were given as major reasons behind the latest push to weaken regulation around what land foreign investors can purchase in New Zealand.
"Which criteria does the Government want to weaken? Is it the criterion that protect indigenous fauna and wildlife or is it kiwi jobs and technology that will be sacrificed for the sake of overseas investment?" asked Dr Graham.
"Perhaps the Government would like to drop protections relating to public access having just mooted a proposal for a nationwide cycleway?"
"I acknowledge the Government’s desire to attract investment in the belief that this is good for the New Zealand economy. But that desire has transformed into a fetish. It needs to be resisted."
The Government seems keen to put the 'For Sale' sign up on land that is currently off-limits to foreign investment, said Green Party MP Dr Kennedy Graham.
Finance Minister Bill English this afternoon attacked the rules around foreign investment as too complex for business. Of particular concern to Mr English was the fact that processing a sensitive land application involves the assessment of 27 different criteria and factors.
"There is a reason that rules around overseas investment in sensitive land is complex – we don’t necessarily want overseas investors buying large chunks of pristine New Zealand land and turning them into golf courses or amusement parks – or coal mines" said Green Party’s Foreign Investment Spokesperson Dr Graham.
"The Government and Act seem intent on greater foreign ownership of New Zealand for the sake of uncritical economic growth. However, when New Zealand firms fall into foreign ownership, dividend payments flow offshore further worsening our current account deficit. "
"Passive investment into New Zealand should not be confused with productive investment. The former simply exploits our country's productive capacity doing nothing to enhance our productivity. New Zealand if anything actually needs smarter foreign investment rules not weaker ones as National is proposing," said Dr Graham.
The recent jobs summit and the calls for regulatory reform were given as major reasons behind the latest push to weaken regulation around what land foreign investors can purchase in New Zealand.
"Which criteria does the Government want to weaken? Is it the criterion that protect indigenous fauna and wildlife or is it kiwi jobs and technology that will be sacrificed for the sake of overseas investment?" asked Dr Graham.
"Perhaps the Government would like to drop protections relating to public access having just mooted a proposal for a nationwide cycleway?"
"I acknowledge the Government’s desire to attract investment in the belief that this is good for the New Zealand economy. But that desire has transformed into a fetish. It needs to be resisted."
Government is Reviewing the 2005 Overseas Investment Act
Below is a press release following the Governments decision to review the 2005 Overseas Investment Act.
LIBERALISING FOREIGN INVESTMENT LAW YET AGAIN EXPOSES GOVERNMENT’S DESPERATE CARGO CULT MENTALITY
News that the Government plans to urgently review the 2005 Overseas Investment Act, with a view to further liberalising it, comes as no surprise. Nor was it any surprise that the Prime Minister made the announcement at the Act Conference. This is another example of the Act tail shaking the National dog (or maybe that dog was wolf in disguise). Key campaigned on a policy of changing very little from what was the status quo under Labour and since winning power has systematically set about changing as much as possible. Along with moves towards privatisation in areas such as ACC, infrastructure and prisons, emasculating what is left of an “oversight” regime for foreign investors is part of that process.
New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world. If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying “Come On In and Help Yourselves”, this proposed law change will simply remove the door (and probably offer it for sale as well).
But the ironic thing is that it may not make any difference. One glaringly obvious fact about the National/Act government is that it has only a passing acquaintance with reality. It seems to have escaped its notice that the global capitalist economy is undergoing a major crisis and that retrenchment and sheer survival are currently higher priorities for many of the very transnational corporations whose dominance of that economy has got us into the mess we’re in. Investing in NZ, regardless of how much easier it is made, is probably not on top of their To Do list at present. The global economic crisis is the reason that foreign investment in NZ nearly halved in 2008 (as compared to 07), not because of “red tape” in the approval (read “rubberstamping”) process.
The Government’s actions in this area (as in so many others) are further evidence of its desperate cargo cult mentality. The original cargo cultists in the Pacific were so impressed with the “cargo” that came from the sky during WW2 that after the Americans had long gone, they built “airstrips” in the bush and patiently waited for the “cargo” to come back and solve all their problems. That’s what the Government is doing with this proposed law liberalisation – building the airstrip and waiting for the cargo to come back out of the sky and solve all our problems.
It shows no recognition of the fact that dependence on open slather foreign “investment” (“takeover” being the correct word), free trade agreements and globalisation, by both National and Labour governments, has done nothing except turn NZ into a branch office economy, a country which has been recolonised by transnationals. Globally, the dominance of that voodoo economics has landed the world into the deep hole from which it is currently trying to escape. Countries such as the US are facing this painful reality, however reluctantly, and are re-evaluating previous policies (which is why it has indefinitely postponed negotiations with NZ on the proposed Free Trade Agreement – another example of the cargo cult mentality). Not NZ though – it thinks that even more of the same, only “better”, is the answer. Very similar to a drug addict who suffers withdrawal symptoms and insists that the best solution is to give him more drugs so that he can do it all over again.
It has already been pointed out that under the free trade agreements to which NZ is already party, such as with China, any further liberalisation of the foreign investment law cannot be reversed under any future Government. And it is truly ironic that the front man for this proposed liberalisation is Bill English who, as recently as December 2008, declined a proposed $250 million foreign investment proposal (namely the takeover of NZ Steel Mining Ltd, a subsidiary of BlueScope Steel Ltd, by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd). Why? “Because CKI did not meet the Overseas Investment Act 2005 criteria of substantial and identifiable benefit which was relevant to the acquisition of business assets which included sensitive land” (Bill English press release, 17/12/08, “Purchase Of NZ Steel Assets Declined”). Those were exactly the grounds used by Labour to stop the Canadian purchase of Auckland Airport in 2008 and they are exactly the grounds that English says the proposed liberalisation is aimed at removing. Funny therefore that he, as the Minister of Finance, had no hesitation in using them to block such a huge proposed foreign takeover only three months ago.
We need more of that sort of pragmatism exhibited by the Government, one which puts the national interest first, and less of the ideological wet dreams of those within its ranks who are still stuck in the 1980s.
LIBERALISING FOREIGN INVESTMENT LAW YET AGAIN EXPOSES GOVERNMENT’S DESPERATE CARGO CULT MENTALITY
News that the Government plans to urgently review the 2005 Overseas Investment Act, with a view to further liberalising it, comes as no surprise. Nor was it any surprise that the Prime Minister made the announcement at the Act Conference. This is another example of the Act tail shaking the National dog (or maybe that dog was wolf in disguise). Key campaigned on a policy of changing very little from what was the status quo under Labour and since winning power has systematically set about changing as much as possible. Along with moves towards privatisation in areas such as ACC, infrastructure and prisons, emasculating what is left of an “oversight” regime for foreign investors is part of that process.
New Zealand already has one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in the world. If the door is already left permanently unlocked, with a sign saying “Come On In and Help Yourselves”, this proposed law change will simply remove the door (and probably offer it for sale as well).
But the ironic thing is that it may not make any difference. One glaringly obvious fact about the National/Act government is that it has only a passing acquaintance with reality. It seems to have escaped its notice that the global capitalist economy is undergoing a major crisis and that retrenchment and sheer survival are currently higher priorities for many of the very transnational corporations whose dominance of that economy has got us into the mess we’re in. Investing in NZ, regardless of how much easier it is made, is probably not on top of their To Do list at present. The global economic crisis is the reason that foreign investment in NZ nearly halved in 2008 (as compared to 07), not because of “red tape” in the approval (read “rubberstamping”) process.
The Government’s actions in this area (as in so many others) are further evidence of its desperate cargo cult mentality. The original cargo cultists in the Pacific were so impressed with the “cargo” that came from the sky during WW2 that after the Americans had long gone, they built “airstrips” in the bush and patiently waited for the “cargo” to come back and solve all their problems. That’s what the Government is doing with this proposed law liberalisation – building the airstrip and waiting for the cargo to come back out of the sky and solve all our problems.
It shows no recognition of the fact that dependence on open slather foreign “investment” (“takeover” being the correct word), free trade agreements and globalisation, by both National and Labour governments, has done nothing except turn NZ into a branch office economy, a country which has been recolonised by transnationals. Globally, the dominance of that voodoo economics has landed the world into the deep hole from which it is currently trying to escape. Countries such as the US are facing this painful reality, however reluctantly, and are re-evaluating previous policies (which is why it has indefinitely postponed negotiations with NZ on the proposed Free Trade Agreement – another example of the cargo cult mentality). Not NZ though – it thinks that even more of the same, only “better”, is the answer. Very similar to a drug addict who suffers withdrawal symptoms and insists that the best solution is to give him more drugs so that he can do it all over again.
It has already been pointed out that under the free trade agreements to which NZ is already party, such as with China, any further liberalisation of the foreign investment law cannot be reversed under any future Government. And it is truly ironic that the front man for this proposed liberalisation is Bill English who, as recently as December 2008, declined a proposed $250 million foreign investment proposal (namely the takeover of NZ Steel Mining Ltd, a subsidiary of BlueScope Steel Ltd, by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd). Why? “Because CKI did not meet the Overseas Investment Act 2005 criteria of substantial and identifiable benefit which was relevant to the acquisition of business assets which included sensitive land” (Bill English press release, 17/12/08, “Purchase Of NZ Steel Assets Declined”). Those were exactly the grounds used by Labour to stop the Canadian purchase of Auckland Airport in 2008 and they are exactly the grounds that English says the proposed liberalisation is aimed at removing. Funny therefore that he, as the Minister of Finance, had no hesitation in using them to block such a huge proposed foreign takeover only three months ago.
We need more of that sort of pragmatism exhibited by the Government, one which puts the national interest first, and less of the ideological wet dreams of those within its ranks who are still stuck in the 1980s.
John Minto's Blog - Roger Award
John Minto wrote about the Roger Award in his blog on the herald. John's blog is definitley worth having a read of - check it out at http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion/frontline
ASH - Roger Award Press Release
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) NZ
British American Tobacco recognised as NZ’s worst corporate citizen
British American Tobacco (BAT) is the worst transnational company in New Zealand after receiving the annual ‘Roger’ Award at a ceremony in Auckland.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) says this confirms that New Zealand is waking up to the sustained public relations campaigns by the tobacco industry.
“New Zealanders are now starting to wonder why they tolerate a company that not only kills 4000 kiwis a year, but takes money away from the country as well,” said ASH director, Ben Youdan.
Organised by the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), the Roger award is presented to any corporation that is 25 per cent or more foreign controlled and is judged to have the most negative effect on economic matters, people and the environment.
“ASH made this nomination because half of BAT’s best customers will die as a result of smoking their products, so we considered they need to be recognised for this contribution to our society,” said Mr Youdan.
Mr Youdan says that the corporate social responsibility reports that the company produce are designed to convince people that the company is caring and responsible when the opposite is true.
“Cigarettes are the only legal product on the market today that when consumed exactly as this company intends will likely kill you, but they’re unlikely to mention this death toll in their glossy reports” said Mr Youdan.
BAT is actively opposing measures that would see a ban on the display of tobacco in shops where children and former smokers can see them via the New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores (NZACS) of which BAT is a premier member
For further information please contact:
Ben Youdan, director, ASH NZ: 021 733 444
British American Tobacco recognised as NZ’s worst corporate citizen
British American Tobacco (BAT) is the worst transnational company in New Zealand after receiving the annual ‘Roger’ Award at a ceremony in Auckland.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) says this confirms that New Zealand is waking up to the sustained public relations campaigns by the tobacco industry.
“New Zealanders are now starting to wonder why they tolerate a company that not only kills 4000 kiwis a year, but takes money away from the country as well,” said ASH director, Ben Youdan.
Organised by the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), the Roger award is presented to any corporation that is 25 per cent or more foreign controlled and is judged to have the most negative effect on economic matters, people and the environment.
“ASH made this nomination because half of BAT’s best customers will die as a result of smoking their products, so we considered they need to be recognised for this contribution to our society,” said Mr Youdan.
Mr Youdan says that the corporate social responsibility reports that the company produce are designed to convince people that the company is caring and responsible when the opposite is true.
“Cigarettes are the only legal product on the market today that when consumed exactly as this company intends will likely kill you, but they’re unlikely to mention this death toll in their glossy reports” said Mr Youdan.
BAT is actively opposing measures that would see a ban on the display of tobacco in shops where children and former smokers can see them via the New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores (NZACS) of which BAT is a premier member
For further information please contact:
Ben Youdan, director, ASH NZ: 021 733 444
2008 Roger Award
Okay - so i'll admit it has been forever and a day since I have udated this blog! My apologies - perhaps updates will coincide with breaks at university - though it is still my intention to update as things come along.
So first thing I need to tell people is the winner of the 2008 Roger Award. To find out more about the Roger Award visit www.cafca.org.nz This years winner was British American Tobacco. A worthy winner that has been nominated every single year. And one I am personally very pleased to see win.
Every year an event is held to announce the winner of the Roger Award. This years event was held in Auckland and featured music from the Electric Car, addresses from Murray Horton and Geoff Bertram (chief judge), as well as a great powerpoint display and presentation from ASH - the anti-smoking lobby group. It was a great night and I don't say so just cos I helped to organise it.
BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO NZ LTD WINS
RIO TINTO ALUMINIUM NZ LTD IS RUNNER UP
BUSINESS NEW ZEALAND WINNER OF ACCOMPLICE AWARD
The full, extremely detailed, Judges’ Report is available at www.cafca.org.nz, follow the Roger Award links.
Finalists: ANZ; BAT (British American Tobacco NZ); Contact Energy; GlaxoSmithKline; Infratil; McDonalds; Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ (nominated under its former name of Comalco); Telecom.
Criteria: the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned) which is worst in each or all of the following: Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism. People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, women, children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism. Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals. Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade.
Judges: Geoff Bertram, Wellington, a Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, Christchurch, immediate past President of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union; Cee Payne, Dunedin, Industrial Services Manager for the NZ Nurses’ Organisation and health issues activist; Christine Dann, Banks Peninsula, a writer and researcher; Bryan Gould, Bay of Plenty, a former Waikato University Vice-Chancellor. The winners were announced at an event in Auckland on March 2.
The Judges’ Statement on BAT says: “Its product kills 5,000 people every year and ruins the lives of tens of thousands. It perennially refuses to take responsibility for the social and economic consequences of its activity, while maintaining a major public relations effort to subvert the efforts of the Government to reduce cigarette consumption”. It is “a conspicuously bad corporate citizen”. The Financial Analysis reveals that BAT NZ’s 2007 profit after tax was a staggering 81% on opening shareholders’ funds, and a questionable borrowing and reinvestment arrangement with other BAT companies outside NZ that allows BAT to reduce its NZ income tax liability by $10 million per year, while hypocritically posturing as a socially responsible corporation.
Rio Tinto Aluminium was runner up because of its “single act of political intimidation”, threatening to close the Bluff smelter if the former Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme went ahead. “Business New Zealand and (CEO) Mr O’Reilly merit an Accomplice Award for their major PR contribution to sustaining the New Zealand government’s spineless record on non-regulation of monopolies and failure to control foreign investments into key sectors of the local economy”.
So first thing I need to tell people is the winner of the 2008 Roger Award. To find out more about the Roger Award visit www.cafca.org.nz This years winner was British American Tobacco. A worthy winner that has been nominated every single year. And one I am personally very pleased to see win.
Every year an event is held to announce the winner of the Roger Award. This years event was held in Auckland and featured music from the Electric Car, addresses from Murray Horton and Geoff Bertram (chief judge), as well as a great powerpoint display and presentation from ASH - the anti-smoking lobby group. It was a great night and I don't say so just cos I helped to organise it.
BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO NZ LTD WINS
RIO TINTO ALUMINIUM NZ LTD IS RUNNER UP
BUSINESS NEW ZEALAND WINNER OF ACCOMPLICE AWARD
The full, extremely detailed, Judges’ Report is available at www.cafca.org.nz, follow the Roger Award links.
Finalists: ANZ; BAT (British American Tobacco NZ); Contact Energy; GlaxoSmithKline; Infratil; McDonalds; Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ (nominated under its former name of Comalco); Telecom.
Criteria: the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned) which is worst in each or all of the following: Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism. People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, women, children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism. Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals. Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade.
Judges: Geoff Bertram, Wellington, a Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, Christchurch, immediate past President of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union; Cee Payne, Dunedin, Industrial Services Manager for the NZ Nurses’ Organisation and health issues activist; Christine Dann, Banks Peninsula, a writer and researcher; Bryan Gould, Bay of Plenty, a former Waikato University Vice-Chancellor. The winners were announced at an event in Auckland on March 2.
The Judges’ Statement on BAT says: “Its product kills 5,000 people every year and ruins the lives of tens of thousands. It perennially refuses to take responsibility for the social and economic consequences of its activity, while maintaining a major public relations effort to subvert the efforts of the Government to reduce cigarette consumption”. It is “a conspicuously bad corporate citizen”. The Financial Analysis reveals that BAT NZ’s 2007 profit after tax was a staggering 81% on opening shareholders’ funds, and a questionable borrowing and reinvestment arrangement with other BAT companies outside NZ that allows BAT to reduce its NZ income tax liability by $10 million per year, while hypocritically posturing as a socially responsible corporation.
Rio Tinto Aluminium was runner up because of its “single act of political intimidation”, threatening to close the Bluff smelter if the former Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme went ahead. “Business New Zealand and (CEO) Mr O’Reilly merit an Accomplice Award for their major PR contribution to sustaining the New Zealand government’s spineless record on non-regulation of monopolies and failure to control foreign investments into key sectors of the local economy”.
28 January 2009
Christchurch Press Editorial - it has a certain odour to it
The following appeared in the Press today. It is full of inaccurate information and its general tone and politics is revolting. No wonder mainstream media is going to the dogs - if this is the best they can come up with. If nothing else - it is lazy. The inaccaurate information would have been obvious to the writer - they just did not bother to check up on it.
Murray Horton has not yet received his own SIS file - just that of CAFCA - a group he help to found. If the writer of this piece had read the article throughly that appeared in their own paper yesterday they would have been aware of this.
As for the inaccurate and insulting accusations made to Bill Sutch - the writer of this editorial needs to read up on there history. Sutch was acquitted - not found guilty as is most definitley more then implied in this piece.
Anyway after that objective introduction have a read for yourself.
Return of SIS files
A whiff of the musty battles of the Cold War years was recalled this week with news on the release of files held by the Security Intelligence Service on activists and others in Christchurch, writes The Press in an editorial.
Under a policy adopted by the SIS six years ago to allow the release of material that is now only of historical interest, the ageing Left-wing agitator Murray Horton and Bill Rosenberg, the son of the late Marxist economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, have obtained their own SIS files.
According to the director of the SIS, Dr Warren Tucker, 26 people received their personal files last year and they had welcomed the service's greater openness. As the events with which the files deal recede into the past, the SIS's proactive declassification of files and impartial release of the information is to be commended. It not only helps understanding of our recent history, it can increase confidence about the way in which the SIS itself has carried out its functions.
The activities of the security intelligence services have been a particular hobgoblin in Left-wing circles at least since the SIS caught William Ball Sutch passing material to the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It continues to this day with the agitation against the spy base at Waihopai. Horton is inclined to find the old files on him and his Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa organisation sinister. In a wildly hyperbolic flourish, he claims it shows that New Zealand has behaved towards dissidents in much the same way as communist police states.
Horton needs to become better acquainted with how the Soviet KGB (even the present Russian FSB) operate. It is somewhat rougher than the mere collection of snippets of rather dull personal gossip and subscribing to activists' newsletters. In communist countries during the Cold War, dissidents and activists were jailed or exiled, or worse.
As Tucker correctly noted, the SIS files have to be viewed in their historical context. The service's methods and those it is interested in have changed over the years. During the Cold War, its target was foreign attempts at subversion, which have since been well documented, often through legitimate political organisations. The SIS would have been remiss if it had not directed itself at that just as nowadays it would be remiss if it did not pay attention to the activities of religious extremists.
To judge from the file on Cafca that Horton has obtained, the SIS's interest in the organisation does not seem to have been very great and appears to have been at its height during protests and such, when there might have been the possibility of legitimate security concerns. By the mid-1980s the SIS recognised that Cafca was of "minimal security interest" and stopped spying on it.
Rosenberg suggests that the file on his father reflects a McCarthyite mindset and wonders whether it impeded his father's application for a professorship. There is no evidence of that. In fact, far from having his career ruined, as happened to many of the disreputable Senator Joseph McCarthy's victims, Wolfgang Rosenberg, who was for many years an active supporter of the communist autocracies in North Korea and elsewhere, had a long and uninterrupted career as a senior academic at Canterbury University, and was frequently employed by state radio. McCarthyism has never formed much of New Zealand's mindset.
Murray Horton has not yet received his own SIS file - just that of CAFCA - a group he help to found. If the writer of this piece had read the article throughly that appeared in their own paper yesterday they would have been aware of this.
As for the inaccurate and insulting accusations made to Bill Sutch - the writer of this editorial needs to read up on there history. Sutch was acquitted - not found guilty as is most definitley more then implied in this piece.
Anyway after that objective introduction have a read for yourself.
Return of SIS files
A whiff of the musty battles of the Cold War years was recalled this week with news on the release of files held by the Security Intelligence Service on activists and others in Christchurch, writes The Press in an editorial.
Under a policy adopted by the SIS six years ago to allow the release of material that is now only of historical interest, the ageing Left-wing agitator Murray Horton and Bill Rosenberg, the son of the late Marxist economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, have obtained their own SIS files.
According to the director of the SIS, Dr Warren Tucker, 26 people received their personal files last year and they had welcomed the service's greater openness. As the events with which the files deal recede into the past, the SIS's proactive declassification of files and impartial release of the information is to be commended. It not only helps understanding of our recent history, it can increase confidence about the way in which the SIS itself has carried out its functions.
The activities of the security intelligence services have been a particular hobgoblin in Left-wing circles at least since the SIS caught William Ball Sutch passing material to the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It continues to this day with the agitation against the spy base at Waihopai. Horton is inclined to find the old files on him and his Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa organisation sinister. In a wildly hyperbolic flourish, he claims it shows that New Zealand has behaved towards dissidents in much the same way as communist police states.
Horton needs to become better acquainted with how the Soviet KGB (even the present Russian FSB) operate. It is somewhat rougher than the mere collection of snippets of rather dull personal gossip and subscribing to activists' newsletters. In communist countries during the Cold War, dissidents and activists were jailed or exiled, or worse.
As Tucker correctly noted, the SIS files have to be viewed in their historical context. The service's methods and those it is interested in have changed over the years. During the Cold War, its target was foreign attempts at subversion, which have since been well documented, often through legitimate political organisations. The SIS would have been remiss if it had not directed itself at that just as nowadays it would be remiss if it did not pay attention to the activities of religious extremists.
To judge from the file on Cafca that Horton has obtained, the SIS's interest in the organisation does not seem to have been very great and appears to have been at its height during protests and such, when there might have been the possibility of legitimate security concerns. By the mid-1980s the SIS recognised that Cafca was of "minimal security interest" and stopped spying on it.
Rosenberg suggests that the file on his father reflects a McCarthyite mindset and wonders whether it impeded his father's application for a professorship. There is no evidence of that. In fact, far from having his career ruined, as happened to many of the disreputable Senator Joseph McCarthy's victims, Wolfgang Rosenberg, who was for many years an active supporter of the communist autocracies in North Korea and elsewhere, had a long and uninterrupted career as a senior academic at Canterbury University, and was frequently employed by state radio. McCarthyism has never formed much of New Zealand's mindset.
And more on the SIS
A number of activists have requested their SIS files. Here is an article sparked by yesterdays one about CAFCA.
Spied on since she was 10
By MARTIN VAN BEYNEN -
The Press Thursday, 29 January 2009
JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post
I SPY: Activist Marie Leadbeater, 63, discovered that she has had her own SIS file since was 10-years-old.
You are never too young to be regarded as a potential subversive, a Security Intelligence Service file shows.
Maire Leadbeater, now 63 and a long-time activist on peace issues, was an early target because of her Christchurch parents, Elsie and Jack Locke, who were prominent members of the New Zealand Communist Party and community activists.
Elsie Locke left the Communist Party in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, but her husband stayed.
One of Leadbeater's siblings is Green MP Keith Locke, a former Trotskyist and member of the Socialist Action League who has also received his SIS file.
Leadbeater's file, which she received late last year, begins when she was 10, with a note that she delivered the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Voice, to the mother of twins in Bangor St, in central Christchurch.
The next item refers to her membership of a junior drama group that the file says was connected with the William Morris (a Fabian socialist) Group, regarded by the SIS as a front for the Communist Party. Elsie Locke performed in the group.
The file continues to track Leadbeater's life, although the SIS lost track of her when she married and took her husband's name. "They lost me for about 13 years," she said.
Her file, like most of the others released, contains material from private meetings.
"I find that the hardest to accept," Leadbeater said. "That small groups of people gathering together in private homes and offices should have someone planted in the meetings.
"It's pretty shocking really. It's potentially very bad for democracy because it makes people anxious about involving themselves in free discussion of ideas and has a big impact on trust if you have to think to yourself `one of us could be a source'."
She was surprised to find her file contains a list of every member of the Palestine Human Rights Committee.
Her file contained references to the state of her parents' marriage, which the SIS thought would be strained by Elsie's departure from the party.
``It's all wrong anyway,'' Leadbeater said. ``It's unpleasant, inaccurate speculation about highly personal family issues.''
The most recent item on her file is a reference to a member of the South Auckland Muslim Association who said she would be taking part in a march on September 28, 2002.
Leadbeater's activities on behalf of the Fiji Coalition for Democracy, the anti-bases campaigns and the Ahmed Zaoui campaign are not mentioned in the file.
"Does this mean that snooping is less or done in a different way?'' she said.
Keith Locke confirmed he had received his own file, which was thick, and his mother's biographer was in possession of his mother's file. He had yet to view his file and was not prepared to comment.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who was once prominent in a number of radical movements, said he would be travelling to Wellington to uplift his file as part of a TV3 news programme.
He was not sure the SIS kept a file on him, but said he would feel a bit insulted if it did not.
"It will make interesting reading. I suspect they would have got a lot more detail if they had just read my book Bullshit and Jellybeans,'' he said.
Shadbolt said he had led at least five radical organisations, including the Radical Students Association and Auckland University Students for the Prevention of Cruelty to Politically Apathetic Humans.
"If they figured out what [the latter organisation] was about, then good luck to them because we never could,'' he said.
Spied on since she was 10
By MARTIN VAN BEYNEN -
The Press Thursday, 29 January 2009
JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post
I SPY: Activist Marie Leadbeater, 63, discovered that she has had her own SIS file since was 10-years-old.
You are never too young to be regarded as a potential subversive, a Security Intelligence Service file shows.
Maire Leadbeater, now 63 and a long-time activist on peace issues, was an early target because of her Christchurch parents, Elsie and Jack Locke, who were prominent members of the New Zealand Communist Party and community activists.
Elsie Locke left the Communist Party in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, but her husband stayed.
One of Leadbeater's siblings is Green MP Keith Locke, a former Trotskyist and member of the Socialist Action League who has also received his SIS file.
Leadbeater's file, which she received late last year, begins when she was 10, with a note that she delivered the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Voice, to the mother of twins in Bangor St, in central Christchurch.
The next item refers to her membership of a junior drama group that the file says was connected with the William Morris (a Fabian socialist) Group, regarded by the SIS as a front for the Communist Party. Elsie Locke performed in the group.
The file continues to track Leadbeater's life, although the SIS lost track of her when she married and took her husband's name. "They lost me for about 13 years," she said.
Her file, like most of the others released, contains material from private meetings.
"I find that the hardest to accept," Leadbeater said. "That small groups of people gathering together in private homes and offices should have someone planted in the meetings.
"It's pretty shocking really. It's potentially very bad for democracy because it makes people anxious about involving themselves in free discussion of ideas and has a big impact on trust if you have to think to yourself `one of us could be a source'."
She was surprised to find her file contains a list of every member of the Palestine Human Rights Committee.
Her file contained references to the state of her parents' marriage, which the SIS thought would be strained by Elsie's departure from the party.
``It's all wrong anyway,'' Leadbeater said. ``It's unpleasant, inaccurate speculation about highly personal family issues.''
The most recent item on her file is a reference to a member of the South Auckland Muslim Association who said she would be taking part in a march on September 28, 2002.
Leadbeater's activities on behalf of the Fiji Coalition for Democracy, the anti-bases campaigns and the Ahmed Zaoui campaign are not mentioned in the file.
"Does this mean that snooping is less or done in a different way?'' she said.
Keith Locke confirmed he had received his own file, which was thick, and his mother's biographer was in possession of his mother's file. He had yet to view his file and was not prepared to comment.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who was once prominent in a number of radical movements, said he would be travelling to Wellington to uplift his file as part of a TV3 news programme.
He was not sure the SIS kept a file on him, but said he would feel a bit insulted if it did not.
"It will make interesting reading. I suspect they would have got a lot more detail if they had just read my book Bullshit and Jellybeans,'' he said.
Shadbolt said he had led at least five radical organisations, including the Radical Students Association and Auckland University Students for the Prevention of Cruelty to Politically Apathetic Humans.
"If they figured out what [the latter organisation] was about, then good luck to them because we never could,'' he said.
CAFCA's SIS file
CAFCA recently requested and was given it's historical file from the Secret Intelligence Service. Whilst in Christchurch over the summer I was able to read this file from start to finish. What I found to be the most astonishing was the lack of anything that would warrant their on-going surveillance. The interest in the personal lives of those involved and disturbing and comments made about individuals behaviour in meetings or there personal views was predictable from such an organisation - but none the less irritating. It serves as a an example of the constant surveillance anyone will be under who questions government, capitalism or adheres to anything but the status quo. Apart from the obvious 'why on earth were they doing this' reaction I actually found the file fascinating as historical reading. It gave in places almost a day to day account of what activists were up to. Of particular interest to me was the numerous pages committed to the 1975 Resistance Ride, which saw activists congregate from around the country for a tour of the south island stopping off at points of interest and at small towns to talk to local people. I had heard accounts of the Resistance Ride before but it was helpful to read the newspaper articles that were generated at the time. So there we go - our SIS - glorified newspaper clippers.
Here is an article that appeared in the Christchurch Press on Wednesday 28th January regarding the CAFCA SIS file.
SIS reveals secret files
Article 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Martin van Beynen
The release of Security Intelligence Service (SIS) files on individuals has revealed for the first time
how far the shadowy service reached into the lives of activist and non-activist New Zealanders.
In response to the SIS relaxing its approach to redundant files, the word has got out.
A flood of files is reaching the people spied on, with most of the clandestine reporting referring to
legitimate protest and political activity.
In November, Murray Horton, a former railway worker, applied for the file on the Campaign Against
Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca), an organisation he helped found.
He received 400 documents, including a cover letter from SIS head Dr Wayne Tucker. It said the
spying had stopped.
The file presented a ‘‘fascinating and disturbing pattern of systematic covert state surveillance of
many, many organisations and many hundreds, if not thousands, of people over decades’’, Horton said.
He had seen other files. One showed the SIS had started monitoring an activist when she was 10.
An SIS spokesman said the service had adopted an archives policy in 2003 to aid ‘‘the proactive
declassification of historical records’’.
‘‘A key element of the archives policy is that the SIS will deal impartially with information, regardless
of whether it reflects unfavourably on the service or shows the service in a good light,’’ he said.
‘‘Subsequent publicity has led to an increase in requests for access to personal information . . . The
service has made every endeavour to be forthcoming.’’
The greater openness had been well-received, with 26 people being sent their personal files last year.
‘‘Recipients of declassified SIS reports have generally viewed them in their historical context and
realised that the service’s methods and informationcollection priorities have altered over the years as the
nature and perceptions of threats to security have changed.’’
The identity of agents and sources of information was deleted from the files, the spokesman said.
So much for democracy, Horton said.
‘‘Our own little country has been proven to behave towards its dissidents in much the same way as
the Communist police states that it used to rail against,’’ he said.
The worst of it was that the Cafca file and others released indiscreet and personally damaging
material about named third parties who were not the subject of the surveillance but simply caught up in
its net, he said.
‘‘A lot of it is salacious gossip, with analyses of named people’s marriage problems, drinking habits,
etc, etc,’’ Horton said.
‘‘Some of it is laughable, like a report dedicated to the likely impact of feminism and different gender
views on abortion on the marriages of named couples.’’
One report contained this reference to Horton: ‘‘He likes the sound of his own voice and keeps
interrupting the other speakers.’’
Bill Rosenberg, 57, who is a member of Cafca, told the Press he had received his personal file, some
of the file kept on his late father, Canterbury University economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, a refugee from
Nazi Germany, and also the file on his mother.
The deputy director of the centre for teaching and learning at Canterbury University said he had
never been a member of a political party but had been in several anti-war protest groups since his youth.
His father’s file showed he had been followed when he went around the country giving talks to
groups. His mother was also monitored because of her membership of the New Zealand Communist
Party in her youth and her involvement in organisations such as the Housewives Union.
His father’s application for a professorship at Victoria University was noted, and he wondered if the
SIS had intervened to ensure it failed.
The files reflected the paranoia of the McCarthy era but also the particular views of SIS staff,
Rosenberg said. ‘‘The release of the files marks a significant change in that degree of paranoia and that
view of the world.’’
His file contained mainly comments about him by Socialist Unity Party and Communist Party
members at private meetings. Most disturbing was the car registration numbers taken when people
visited his house after he had returned from overseas.
The picture emerging from the files was a ‘‘huge mixture of time-serving stuff’’ and reports about
innocuous events, Rosenberg said.
The lack of sophistication was startling and little analysis was done on why activities were suspicious.
The vast majority of reporting was about ‘‘perfectly legitimate political activity by people who had a
different view to the status quo’’, Rosenberg said.
SIS dossiers detail dalliances, dances and very little drama
Article rank 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Organisations and individuals throughout the country are finding out whythey
attracted the attention of the Security Intelligence Service as files no longer
regarded as live are released. MARTINVANBEYNENblows the dust off two
Christchurch files
Keeping files for the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) must have been a boring job. The file on the
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca, formerly Cafcinz, the Campaign Against Foreign
Control in New Zealand) contains about 400 mostly mundane documents, and goes back to its earlier
incarnation in 1965.
It consists mainly of newspaper clippings, Cafca publications and newsletters, press releases and
internal SIS memorandums providing reports on Cafca’s annual meetings. It also contains briefings to
the prime minister on Cafca and notes that some material was passed on to the United States
government.
Much of the information stems from the SIS’s District Office, Christchurch (DOC).
The SIS would not have needed to employ its full resources to garner the information. Most of it
would have been easily obtainable by subscription, and Cafca has always correctly assumed addresses
on its mailing list contained either post office boxes belonging to the SIS or the police Criminal
Intelligence Service.
SIS reports of meetings always identify the attendees, as do reports on pickets and protests. Other
happenings at such protests are recorded, including anti-government statements.
A record of a demonstration in 1980 notes an individual calling the government a ‘‘ripoff’’ and saying
the ‘‘Marxist way of life’’ was better.
Finances are often mentioned as links with other organisations.
By the mid-1980s, the SIS had almost lost interest in Cafca, regarding it as of ‘‘minimal security
interest’’.
A covering letter accompanying the released file by current SIS director Dr Warren Tucker says the
service would have been less interested in the organisation after 1977 if it had not continued with
protests against US bases and naval visits and with protests to abolish the SIS.
The SIS’s interest appears to have peaked in a period between 1975 and 1978 when Cafca or its
predecessor was involved in protests against the visit of US navy secretary J. W. Middendorf, the
berthing of Russian trawler Yunost at Lyttelton and the Pacific Basin Economic Council meeting in
Christchurch.
These followed the involvement of Cafca members in a protest and winning-hearts campaign called
the South Island Resistance Ride in 1975.
The Cafca file included a list of everyone on the ride, with their address and telephone number.
Preparations for the tour, such as ferry bookings, are documented.
The interest cranked up in 1976 when an attempt was made to sabotage a communications mast at
Weedons in Canterbury, and increased again in 1977 when seven .303 bullets were fired into an oil
tanker in protest against the visit of the US Union Oil chairman to the Pacific Basin meeting.
No evidence suggested any link with Cafca, but clearly it was strongly suspected, the file shows.
The prime minister was briefed on the organisation by then SIS director Paul Molineaux.
After skirmishes at the demonstration against the Pacific Basin meeting, the SIS notes on the file
appear to lament a ‘‘well-placed source’’ in Cafca who should have been able to ‘‘forewarn’’ the
authorities.
Although the file suggests a degree of infiltration of Cafca by the SIS by 1978, it did not go to the
trouble of planting a mole.
The main reason for the SIS’s curiosity about Cafca was the organisation’s suspected links and
shared personnel with the New Zealand Communist Party (CP), its youth arm, the Progressive Youth
Movement (PYM), the Socialist Unity Party of New Zealand (SUP) and various offshoots.
From the Cafca file it is clear the SIS had a mole within the Christchurch branch of the CP and as
early as 1975 the party source is reporting how the party regards Cafca as a good testing and recruiting
ground for converts.
The SIS took a much closer interest in CP members, which involved intercepting mail.
In 1986, its source reports on a meeting at which the perilous finances of the Christchurch branch are
discussed and the need to persuade Marion Lesley Hobbs (who later became a Labour Cabinet minister)
to pledge $10.
CP cadres did not always do Cafca any favours. In 1980, B, attending a CP meeting, is reported to
boast when drunk that Cafca had been responsible for the Weedons aerial sabotage on directions from
the CP. Cafca stalwart Murray Horton says the organisation was not involved.
The SIS expresses, in one memo, its satisfaction at the Cafca protest against the Russian trawler
visit, suggesting the protest would create a rift between Cafca and the ‘‘People’s Union’’.
The Cafca file, with its broad compass, contrasts with the file on Christchurch unionist Paul Corliss,
formerly the secretary of the Harbour Workers Union and convener of the Council of Trade Unions in
Canterbury. He is now a part-time union organiser.
He first came to the attention of the SIS in 1974 through his association with Horton and another
Cafca stalwart, Brian Rooney.
He worked with Horton as distribution manager for the Canterbury University student newspaper
Canta, and both men later worked in the traffic branch of New Zealand Railways in Christchurch.
Both are noted in Corliss’s file as ‘‘troublemakers to railways management’’.
Suspicions Corliss might be a member of SUP (he was never a member of the grouping) are also
noted. Corliss’s file tracks his rise up the ranks of the trade union movement and starts with his involvement
in the South Island Resistance Ride, for which he was in charge of food.
In the end, he could not be bothered going, he says.
His file mentions his attendance at a protest in 1980 in Lyttelton against the sale of coal to Japan and
also his arrest in a protest against the Springboks rugby tour in 1981.It records his promotion to Canterbury secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen and his part in a protest against minister of railways George Gair.
It notes his appointment to the executive of the Council of Trade Unions and reports his attendance at a May Day social organised by the CP at the Trade Union Centre in Christchurch on May 2, 1986. The report notes the gathering was entertained by a blind man playing an accordion and a tin
whistle.
Corliss is tracked attending a meeting of SUP in 1986 and in the same year is said not to have turned
up at a Committee for a Worker Front meeting where he was supposed to speak.The committee was trying to come up with a manifesto to provide an alternative to the Roger
Douglas reforms.
His file then notes his invitation to a seminar by SUP and an advertisement giving notice of his
intention to speak at a series of public forums on ‘‘reconquering the Labour Party or a new workers’
party’’.
Corliss, who has never been a member of a political party, says he is not overly perturbed at finding
– to his surprise – that he is the subject of an SIS file.
But he finds it bizarre he should ‘‘feature in some official secret source’’.
‘‘I mean, I wouldn’t feel like that if I had some guilt or something, but this is a bit odd,’’ he says. ‘‘All
I did was belong to legal organisations.’’
He was not a career railwayman, but ‘‘if I had been, it [the note about being a troublemaker] could
have been a major influence on my future’’.
‘‘It seems clear they were talking with senior management about me and Murray, and that would
have leaked like a sieve,’’ he says. ‘‘To say I was causing trouble was a sign I was doing my job as a representative. But there were thousands of union delegates around the country doing what democratic unions are allowed to do.’’
Here is an article that appeared in the Christchurch Press on Wednesday 28th January regarding the CAFCA SIS file.
SIS reveals secret files
Article 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Martin van Beynen
The release of Security Intelligence Service (SIS) files on individuals has revealed for the first time
how far the shadowy service reached into the lives of activist and non-activist New Zealanders.
In response to the SIS relaxing its approach to redundant files, the word has got out.
A flood of files is reaching the people spied on, with most of the clandestine reporting referring to
legitimate protest and political activity.
In November, Murray Horton, a former railway worker, applied for the file on the Campaign Against
Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca), an organisation he helped found.
He received 400 documents, including a cover letter from SIS head Dr Wayne Tucker. It said the
spying had stopped.
The file presented a ‘‘fascinating and disturbing pattern of systematic covert state surveillance of
many, many organisations and many hundreds, if not thousands, of people over decades’’, Horton said.
He had seen other files. One showed the SIS had started monitoring an activist when she was 10.
An SIS spokesman said the service had adopted an archives policy in 2003 to aid ‘‘the proactive
declassification of historical records’’.
‘‘A key element of the archives policy is that the SIS will deal impartially with information, regardless
of whether it reflects unfavourably on the service or shows the service in a good light,’’ he said.
‘‘Subsequent publicity has led to an increase in requests for access to personal information . . . The
service has made every endeavour to be forthcoming.’’
The greater openness had been well-received, with 26 people being sent their personal files last year.
‘‘Recipients of declassified SIS reports have generally viewed them in their historical context and
realised that the service’s methods and informationcollection priorities have altered over the years as the
nature and perceptions of threats to security have changed.’’
The identity of agents and sources of information was deleted from the files, the spokesman said.
So much for democracy, Horton said.
‘‘Our own little country has been proven to behave towards its dissidents in much the same way as
the Communist police states that it used to rail against,’’ he said.
The worst of it was that the Cafca file and others released indiscreet and personally damaging
material about named third parties who were not the subject of the surveillance but simply caught up in
its net, he said.
‘‘A lot of it is salacious gossip, with analyses of named people’s marriage problems, drinking habits,
etc, etc,’’ Horton said.
‘‘Some of it is laughable, like a report dedicated to the likely impact of feminism and different gender
views on abortion on the marriages of named couples.’’
One report contained this reference to Horton: ‘‘He likes the sound of his own voice and keeps
interrupting the other speakers.’’
Bill Rosenberg, 57, who is a member of Cafca, told the Press he had received his personal file, some
of the file kept on his late father, Canterbury University economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, a refugee from
Nazi Germany, and also the file on his mother.
The deputy director of the centre for teaching and learning at Canterbury University said he had
never been a member of a political party but had been in several anti-war protest groups since his youth.
His father’s file showed he had been followed when he went around the country giving talks to
groups. His mother was also monitored because of her membership of the New Zealand Communist
Party in her youth and her involvement in organisations such as the Housewives Union.
His father’s application for a professorship at Victoria University was noted, and he wondered if the
SIS had intervened to ensure it failed.
The files reflected the paranoia of the McCarthy era but also the particular views of SIS staff,
Rosenberg said. ‘‘The release of the files marks a significant change in that degree of paranoia and that
view of the world.’’
His file contained mainly comments about him by Socialist Unity Party and Communist Party
members at private meetings. Most disturbing was the car registration numbers taken when people
visited his house after he had returned from overseas.
The picture emerging from the files was a ‘‘huge mixture of time-serving stuff’’ and reports about
innocuous events, Rosenberg said.
The lack of sophistication was startling and little analysis was done on why activities were suspicious.
The vast majority of reporting was about ‘‘perfectly legitimate political activity by people who had a
different view to the status quo’’, Rosenberg said.
SIS dossiers detail dalliances, dances and very little drama
Article rank 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Organisations and individuals throughout the country are finding out whythey
attracted the attention of the Security Intelligence Service as files no longer
regarded as live are released. MARTINVANBEYNENblows the dust off two
Christchurch files
Keeping files for the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) must have been a boring job. The file on the
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca, formerly Cafcinz, the Campaign Against Foreign
Control in New Zealand) contains about 400 mostly mundane documents, and goes back to its earlier
incarnation in 1965.
It consists mainly of newspaper clippings, Cafca publications and newsletters, press releases and
internal SIS memorandums providing reports on Cafca’s annual meetings. It also contains briefings to
the prime minister on Cafca and notes that some material was passed on to the United States
government.
Much of the information stems from the SIS’s District Office, Christchurch (DOC).
The SIS would not have needed to employ its full resources to garner the information. Most of it
would have been easily obtainable by subscription, and Cafca has always correctly assumed addresses
on its mailing list contained either post office boxes belonging to the SIS or the police Criminal
Intelligence Service.
SIS reports of meetings always identify the attendees, as do reports on pickets and protests. Other
happenings at such protests are recorded, including anti-government statements.
A record of a demonstration in 1980 notes an individual calling the government a ‘‘ripoff’’ and saying
the ‘‘Marxist way of life’’ was better.
Finances are often mentioned as links with other organisations.
By the mid-1980s, the SIS had almost lost interest in Cafca, regarding it as of ‘‘minimal security
interest’’.
A covering letter accompanying the released file by current SIS director Dr Warren Tucker says the
service would have been less interested in the organisation after 1977 if it had not continued with
protests against US bases and naval visits and with protests to abolish the SIS.
The SIS’s interest appears to have peaked in a period between 1975 and 1978 when Cafca or its
predecessor was involved in protests against the visit of US navy secretary J. W. Middendorf, the
berthing of Russian trawler Yunost at Lyttelton and the Pacific Basin Economic Council meeting in
Christchurch.
These followed the involvement of Cafca members in a protest and winning-hearts campaign called
the South Island Resistance Ride in 1975.
The Cafca file included a list of everyone on the ride, with their address and telephone number.
Preparations for the tour, such as ferry bookings, are documented.
The interest cranked up in 1976 when an attempt was made to sabotage a communications mast at
Weedons in Canterbury, and increased again in 1977 when seven .303 bullets were fired into an oil
tanker in protest against the visit of the US Union Oil chairman to the Pacific Basin meeting.
No evidence suggested any link with Cafca, but clearly it was strongly suspected, the file shows.
The prime minister was briefed on the organisation by then SIS director Paul Molineaux.
After skirmishes at the demonstration against the Pacific Basin meeting, the SIS notes on the file
appear to lament a ‘‘well-placed source’’ in Cafca who should have been able to ‘‘forewarn’’ the
authorities.
Although the file suggests a degree of infiltration of Cafca by the SIS by 1978, it did not go to the
trouble of planting a mole.
The main reason for the SIS’s curiosity about Cafca was the organisation’s suspected links and
shared personnel with the New Zealand Communist Party (CP), its youth arm, the Progressive Youth
Movement (PYM), the Socialist Unity Party of New Zealand (SUP) and various offshoots.
From the Cafca file it is clear the SIS had a mole within the Christchurch branch of the CP and as
early as 1975 the party source is reporting how the party regards Cafca as a good testing and recruiting
ground for converts.
The SIS took a much closer interest in CP members, which involved intercepting mail.
In 1986, its source reports on a meeting at which the perilous finances of the Christchurch branch are
discussed and the need to persuade Marion Lesley Hobbs (who later became a Labour Cabinet minister)
to pledge $10.
CP cadres did not always do Cafca any favours. In 1980, B, attending a CP meeting, is reported to
boast when drunk that Cafca had been responsible for the Weedons aerial sabotage on directions from
the CP. Cafca stalwart Murray Horton says the organisation was not involved.
The SIS expresses, in one memo, its satisfaction at the Cafca protest against the Russian trawler
visit, suggesting the protest would create a rift between Cafca and the ‘‘People’s Union’’.
The Cafca file, with its broad compass, contrasts with the file on Christchurch unionist Paul Corliss,
formerly the secretary of the Harbour Workers Union and convener of the Council of Trade Unions in
Canterbury. He is now a part-time union organiser.
He first came to the attention of the SIS in 1974 through his association with Horton and another
Cafca stalwart, Brian Rooney.
He worked with Horton as distribution manager for the Canterbury University student newspaper
Canta, and both men later worked in the traffic branch of New Zealand Railways in Christchurch.
Both are noted in Corliss’s file as ‘‘troublemakers to railways management’’.
Suspicions Corliss might be a member of SUP (he was never a member of the grouping) are also
noted. Corliss’s file tracks his rise up the ranks of the trade union movement and starts with his involvement
in the South Island Resistance Ride, for which he was in charge of food.
In the end, he could not be bothered going, he says.
His file mentions his attendance at a protest in 1980 in Lyttelton against the sale of coal to Japan and
also his arrest in a protest against the Springboks rugby tour in 1981.It records his promotion to Canterbury secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen and his part in a protest against minister of railways George Gair.
It notes his appointment to the executive of the Council of Trade Unions and reports his attendance at a May Day social organised by the CP at the Trade Union Centre in Christchurch on May 2, 1986. The report notes the gathering was entertained by a blind man playing an accordion and a tin
whistle.
Corliss is tracked attending a meeting of SUP in 1986 and in the same year is said not to have turned
up at a Committee for a Worker Front meeting where he was supposed to speak.The committee was trying to come up with a manifesto to provide an alternative to the Roger
Douglas reforms.
His file then notes his invitation to a seminar by SUP and an advertisement giving notice of his
intention to speak at a series of public forums on ‘‘reconquering the Labour Party or a new workers’
party’’.
Corliss, who has never been a member of a political party, says he is not overly perturbed at finding
– to his surprise – that he is the subject of an SIS file.
But he finds it bizarre he should ‘‘feature in some official secret source’’.
‘‘I mean, I wouldn’t feel like that if I had some guilt or something, but this is a bit odd,’’ he says. ‘‘All
I did was belong to legal organisations.’’
He was not a career railwayman, but ‘‘if I had been, it [the note about being a troublemaker] could
have been a major influence on my future’’.
‘‘It seems clear they were talking with senior management about me and Murray, and that would
have leaked like a sieve,’’ he says. ‘‘To say I was causing trouble was a sign I was doing my job as a representative. But there were thousands of union delegates around the country doing what democratic unions are allowed to do.’’
Election Analysis
Well since the last entry we've had an election and we now have a new Prime Minister. Following is the election analysis from Murray Horton to appear in the next issue of Foreign Control Watchdog.
HEEEERE’S JOHNNNY!
- Murray Horton
The definitive scene in Stanley Kubrick’s classic supernatural horror film “The Shining” was when the character played by Jack Nicholson has gone mad and is hunting his terrified family with an axe. He uses it to smash his way through the bathroom door and then sticks his insanely grinning face in to announce “Here’s Johnny!” (an ironic send up of the famous intro used at the start of his TV shows by US entertainment icon, Johnny Carson). That vivid visual image best encapsulates my reaction to National’s 2008 electoral victory, the closest possible to a landslide under MMP. Goodness, does that mean that I’m comparing nice smiley Johnny Key to a homicidal maniac? That remains to be seen but I have the uncomfortable feeling that we’re now sharing a small room with somebody who has an axe. To develop further the analogy with that wonderful movie – the axe murderer was driven mad by malevolent ghosts (and he ended up frozen to death in the snow). Well, there’s plenty of spooks and zombies in Key’s supporting cast of hacks, hasbeens and halfwits and I wouldn’t put it past them to shove our John out into the snow once he’s no further use to them. For a leader who campaigned on the platform of “a fresh face” and “change” (which is definitely the only similarity he can claim to Barack Obama), there’s a deadening look of sameness about the “new” National/Act government, not to mention Peter Dunne (pronounced Dunny) that sinkingshipjumpingrat par excellence.
Are New Zealanders Stupid?
Inevitably, following National’s comprehensive and long predicted victory there was an outpouring of rage and despair from some people. Most futile was the reaction to blame it on “stupid” New Zealanders. This is understandable but quite wrong. So, New Zealanders must have been “stupid” every time they voted in a National government (Piggy Muldoon anyone? Or the Bolger/Birch/Richardson version?). Come to think of it, they certainly must have been terminally bloody stupid to re-elect the 1980s Roger Douglas Labour government, if you subscribe to the stupidity theory of politics. And I have no doubt that Tory voters must have had the same “stupid bastards” reaction when their fellow citizens voted in, although not so often, Labour governments, even a Labour-Alliance government for all of three years (my late father - who voted National nearly all of his life until his final decade – was a great believer in the inherent stupidity of Labour voters. I grew up hearing the expression that “if Labour ran a red arsed baboon in Sydenham it would be elected”. In the case of John Kirk, he was dead right). But, tempting as it is, “stupidity” is not the reason and nor is it even worth seriously examining.
People vote the way they do (and change their allegiance) for a wide variety of reasons. A very small number, presumably the much less than 5% who voted for Act, want a far Right government with a prominent role for their undead messiah, Sir Roger Douglas. Moral conservatives would have voted against Labour for laws such as the deliberately mislabelled “anti-smacking” act, legalisation of prostitution, civil unions, etc, plus the carefully fostered perception that the Government was running a “politically correct nanny State”. This was the local version of the “culture wars” that have split American politics asunder for years (and continue to do so, as evidenced by the simultaneous votes in California for Obama and against gay marriage). “What’s in it for me?” a la tax cuts was definitely a factor and Labour fell into the trap of a bidding war on which party would cut taxes the most. The obvious contradiction between cutting taxes and reducing public services (while also promising a spend up on infrastructure, etc) shouldn’t take too long to emerge. And then the swinging voters will direct their anger at the National government, with the media full of stories of people whose Dear Old Mums have died while on the hospital waiting list.
Some others use their two votes tactically. To cite my late father again – naturally, he voted against MMP in the referendum that led to its introduction, but he then took to it with gusto and in the first MMP election, in 1996, he used his two votes to support National and Jim Anderton. If you accepted his political logic (I didn’t), it all made perfect sense (in the final two elections of his life, 1999 & 02, he reverted to voting Labour and Anderton, because National had become too free market and far Right for an old Muldoonist. And he admired Helen Clark as “our strongest Prime Minister since Piggy”).
But the vast majority of those who voted Labour out (and it’s worth remembering that 2008 saw the second lowest turnout in decades) did so for nothing more articulate than “it’s time for a change”. There was no deep visceral loathing of Helen Clark as there had been for Muldoon in 1984, and despite the inevitable scandals that trip up any Government and the problems with coalition partners that are a hallmark of MMP, they were nothing compared to their equivalents which saw the 1996-99 National government implode, dumping their Prime Minister and coalition partner along the way to electoral defeat. Labour ran its own most disciplined government ever, with unswerving loyalty to Clark and minimal problems (until the final few months) with its New Zealand First coalition partner. Key ran a very narrowly focused campaign from the moment he was elected National’s Leader which stressed how little he would change things from Labour (or, rather, he said that he wouldn’t. We’ll now find out if what he said and what he does are two very different things. It was exactly that two faced lying under the last Labour and National governments before MMP that saw it voted in as a new electoral system to stop that misrepresentation and arrogance of power). Basically people have voted for a change of face and a minimal change of policies, having been promised that there won’t be much deviation from what was business as usual under Labour.
Labour Was On Borrowed Time From 05
It needs to be remembered that Labour came very, very close to losing the 2005 election, which means that a substantial chunk of the electorate was sick of it a full three years before it went out. And that was when National was headed by Labour’s greatest asset, the fumbling, bumbling Don Brash with his openly declared far Right agenda. Labour’s fate was sealed when Nicky Hager’s 2006 book “The Hollow Men” delivered the coup de grace to Brash – after that, he was, in his own immortal phrase, gone by lunchtime – and National made a special effort to pick a new Leader whose central quality had to be that he wasn’t Don Brash (so, Nicky, if you’re reading this, it was all your fault). Personally, I regret that National didn’t stick with its previous Brash/Key leadership team, as I had the perfect collective name for them – DonKey.
Election night 05 was a real nailbiter, with Labour eventually emerging with a majority of one over National and then followed the usual tedious weeks of negotiations before a deal was stitched up with Winston Peters (which is why National, Act and their media mates made damned sure that he and his party were neutralised before the 08 election). Labour was at its apex in the 2002 election when they were given a dream run by National under Bill English running possibly the most inept campaign in New Zealand’s history, which led to National’s worst ever result (the only thing that I can remember Bill saying from that campaign was the immortal line “Oi loike poies” when filmed eating one. Good on you mate, so do I).
Labour harboured the conceit that it would win enough votes to govern alone in 2002 (the desire to be shot of all this MMP nonsense is also shared by National, which came much closer to being able to realise it in the 08 election) until it came a gutser because of that bloody Nicky Hager again and his earlier book "Seeds Of Distrust", which meticulously documented (as Nicky always does) the importation of genetically engineered-contaminated corn seeds into New Zealand by transnational corporations, the Government’s changing of the rules to retrospectively legalise that importation, and then concealing the fact that this corn was planted and harvested in the normal commercial manner. The book threw Clark completely off balance and publicly revealed a very ugly side of her personality. The Labour/Alliance government (remember the Alliance?) was caught out having covered up a very serious breach of New Zealand’s supposed GE free status, and Clark opted for the standard Muldoonist response – abuse and attack. The Greens lost votes and traction by not strongly picking up the explosive revelations in the book, instead seeming to regard it as an annoying distraction on their inevitable progress to Cabinet posts. "We didn’t know about it either" was their heartfelt plaint. Clark’s attacks put them firmly on the back foot and both parties suffered at the polls, as voters went elsewhere. But Labour still won easily, and repaid the Greens’ support by keeping them out of the resulting coalition (as they did for the full nine years they were in office).
So, effectively Labour had been on notice since at least 2005, if not earlier, that it was a Government on borrowed time and that its fate was sealed unless it could pull something out of the hat. National had already produced a fluffy white rabbit of its own, called John; from the moment he became National’s Leader, the media lauded him as the Chosen One and the polls gave him and National a lead which they never lost. It soon became clear that all that Labour could offer was to attack Key, in an eerie echo of the negative attack campaign on Barack Obama run by the other John, McCain, on behalf of the other incumbent party in the other election of 2008. To use the rugby analogy, it was a classic case of playing the man and not the ball. Even more damningly, it didn’t work.
I knew that Labour was buggered when, a fortnight out from election day, they were caught desperately trying to dig up 20 year old dirt from Key’s highly profitable career as a money trader (they found nothing and the accusations rebounded on them. Both Labour and the media didn’t dare raise the larger question that the money trading business in which Key made his fortune is basically a crime per se and has got the global economy into the mess that it is currently in. A Labour Party which has never renounced Rogernomics, only that Rogernomics is electoral poison, would never raise that fundamental question). To add insult to injury, just days out from the election, Helen Clark offered a formal coalition and Cabinet posts to the Greens, after stabbing them in the back and taking them for granted for nine years. She knew then that she and her Government were finished – her election night resignation as Party leader was no spontaneous gesture – so it was a totally empty offer.
Maori Party Are The New Cannon Fodder
So what can we expect from Key’s National government? He has gone to great efforts to stress that it will be Centre Right, with the emphasis on centrism. Getting the Maori Party into the coalition is a very clever tactic on his behalf and potentially marks a seismic shift in the NZ political landscape, with Maori maybe ending the alliance with Labour that had lasted since the 1930s. The Maori Party grew directly out of Maori in the Labour Party finally having had a gutsfull of decades of patronising neglect and being taken for granted, with the foreshore and seabed issue being the last straw. The dislike of Labour evidenced by Tariana Turia, Party Co-Leader and former Labour Cabinet Minister, is evident to all. But whether entering a coalition is as beneficial for the Maori Party as it is for National remains to be seen. In the seven Maori seats in the 2008 election, Labour easily won the party vote over both the Maori Party and National, so going into this coalition flies in the face of the great majority of Maori seat voters, who clearly backed Labour. And junior coalition partners are the ones who are used as cannon fodder by the Government. In 1996 New Zealand First swept all the Maori seats and entered into coalition with National, trumpeting itself as the replacement for Labour as the party for Maori, with Winston Peters as Treasurer. That lasted all of two years, before Peters was fired, the coalition ended, the party split and, in 1999, Labour won back all the Maori seats.
This National/Act/United Future/Maori coalition, with Ministerial posts outside Cabinet for the leaders of all three junior partners (but none for Sir Roger Douglas) is being touted as Key being able to use the Maori Party on the “Left” to neutralise Act on the Right. However it is a mistake to think of the Maori Party as being Left – it is very much a party based on race, not class (since the Alliance imploded and disappeared from Parliament at the 2002 election, there hasn’t been any truly class-based party in Parliament) and it has flirted with the Tories ever since it came into Parliament at the 05 election, including when National was under the far Right leadership of Don Brash. Key has promised to review the foreshore and seabed law (no big hassle, because National voted against it) and, in a major flipflop, has backed off his promise to abolish the Maori seats, which would destroy the Maori Party. This will lose Key support form the pakeha racists who flocked to National when Brash deliberately chose Maori bashing as a central policy, soaring in the polls as a result and forcing Labour to drop its policies which “discriminated in favour of Maori”. Whether this coalition lasts any longer than the fractious 1996-98 one which fatally wounded the last National government remains to be seen. And whether Maori seat voters punish the Maori Party for ignoring their 2008 overwhelming party vote for Labour will be a fascinating feature of the 2011 election. I have no doubt that National will happily use its new Maori Party Ministers to take the heat from its policies which will inevitably bash the poor (the “underclass” that Key highlighted when he first became National Leader; we haven’t heard so much about them from him since), of whom a disproportionate chunk are Maori.
How Many Ways Can You Spell Privatisation?
More specifically, what can CAFCA expect from National? Throughout 2007 and 08 Key was continually embarrassed by several of his senior colleagues, such as his Deputy, Bill English, and Maurice Williamson, blurting out a wish list – “sell Kiwibank, introduce toll roads”, etc, etc! Watchdog has regularly analysed this evidence of a hidden agenda of privatisation and user pays, those discredited relics of the 1980s and 90s (which is where National and Labour’s front benches cut their teeth). For example, see my article “Sharks In the Water. Privatisation Rears Its Ugly Head Again”, which was the cover story in Watchdog 118, August 2008, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/18/01.htm. Key has pledged not to sell any public assets, such as Kiwibank or the newly renationalised KiwiRail in National’s first term – which, of course, leaves State assets wide open to be flogged off in any subsequent term (here’s hoping but there never has been a single term National government. For his compulsive desire to blurt out the truth, Maurice Williamson was punished by being left out of Key’s Cabinet).
In the first term, we can expect to see the wholesale introduction of public private partnerships (PPP) in infrastructure projects such as roading (Labour was enthusiastically going the same way); the partial opening up of ACC to competition by insurance transnational corporations (National says this isn’t privatisation), and much more private sector involvement right across the board but heavily in sectors such as health, education and welfare. The Resource Management Act will be diluted to make it more “business friendly” – it’s been a target of Big Business ever since its introduction. National is an even more rabid champion of the “open economy and globalisation”, meaning more unfettered foreign investment and free trade agreements, including the Holy Grail, one with the US (which Labour kicked off). The very first thing that Key did, as a sop to Act, was to delay (pending a review) the proposed carbon emissions trading scheme, although he was at pains to stress that NZ will not be backing away from our obligations under the Kyoto Treaty. Considering that Rodney Hide campaigned on the basis that global warming is a “hoax”, this is hardly surprising, but it makes NZ a flat Earth laughingstock to the rest of the world, to whom global warming is the biggest issue bar none.
In foreign policy, the close ties with the US that Labour worked so assiduously to repair will be strengthened. Barack Osama has pledged to get US troops out of Iraq (a war that Labour kept NZ out of; National would have gone in shoulder to shoulder with Bush) but only to redeploy them into Afghanistan, which he has proclaimed to be the American Empire’s “real war”. NZ already has troops in Afghanistan, primarily engaged in reconstruction in one comparatively peaceful province. Expect the US to “request” that its allies, such as NZ, commit front line troops to the intensified Afghan war and to support Obama’s reckless new emphasis on attacking into Pakistan (shades of the Vietnam War, where the US spread it across the border into both Cambodia and Laos – and lost in all three countries).
One consolation for Labour is that if you it had to lose an election, this was definitely the best one to lose. The global and domestic economy are in freefall, it’s the biggest crisis in capitalism since the 1930s Great Depression and it’s all entirely manmade, created by the truly gargantuan greed and stupidity of the finance capitalists who captured the system and milked it dry for their own immense profit. I’m touched by the naïve faith that some people have expressed in John Key, who became a multi-millionaire as a wheeler dealer in that very same financial market, as the best leader during a time of unprecedented crisis in that market. Yes, he made a fortune but only by using money to make money; he’s never made anything or run anything whatsoever in the real economy (defined as things that you can drop on your foot). It is the money men who have got global capitalism into the current mess, why would anyone think that a money man will know how to get little old New Zealand out of it? We’re a long way from the rest of the world and the tsunami which is drowning it has not yet reached us – but rest assured that it’s on the way. A Prime Minister presiding over an economy in recession, maybe even depression, with rapidly growing unemployment and every other negative symptom that will accompany capitalism’s biggest bust in nearly a century, is going to have a very rough time of it as the people take it out on the Government.
Let’s See If Key Lasts The Distance As Prime Minister
He is National’s main asset, because of his inoffensive personality and his (public) willingness in the election buildup to say or do anything that would ensure that National got into power. But plenty in his own party, let alone his Rightwing coalition partner and Big Business and the transnational corporate media, are angered by his whole series of flipflops, his selling of National as “Labour lite”. There are plenty of unreconstructed Rogernauts (including dear old Sir Roger himself, of course) in National and Act, who entertain fantasies about “finishing the business”, whose standard denial of reality for the past two decades has been that if only they’d been able to inflict more pain there would have been some gain. They belong to “the operation was a great success, the patient died” school of politics and economics. At the same time as the rest of the world is suddenly rediscovering the essential role of the State - and taxpayers’ money - in saving capitalism from itself, and even the US has taken a step to the Left (but only in US terms), New Zealand now has a Government committed to the market forces bullshit that got us (and the world) into this mess. What exquisite timing! To refresh your memories about who these people are that are operating in National’s shadows, read Jeremy Agar’s review of the 2008 documentary “The Hollow Men” in Watchdog 1118, August 2008, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/18/08.htm.
If the far Right gets sufficiently sick of Key for being insufficiently politically correct, they will simply dump him. It’s what the Jenny Shipley faction did to Jim Bolger in the late 90s, when National was last in power; it’s what the Rogernauts did to David Lange when his Labour government was tearing itself apart in the late 80s. Rogernomics was rushed through, in direct contradiction to Labour’s 1984 election manifesto, in response to a “financial crisis”; Richardson’s Ruthanasia, likewise, was rushed through in direct contradiction to National’s 1990 election promises, and in response to another “financial crisis’. There really is a financial crisis this time, a global one, and the old Rogernauts must be twitching to slash and burn, which is all they know how to do, in order “to save us”.
Actually there is one wild card factor that could consign National to being a one term government. In 1999, Jenny Shipley, in all seriousness, reckoned that the All Blacks crashing out of the Rugby World Cup impacted badly on her Government in that year’s election (if they’d won, she said that National would have benefitted from the feel good factor). The 2011 election coincides with NZ hosting the World Cup. If the All Blacks crash out yet again, and at home, the national mood will be ugly (New Zealanders get much more passionate about rugby than politics). The public, who will be looking for someone to blame, don’t get a vote for the Rugby Union bosses or the All Blacks’ coach, so they’ll stick it up the Government which, doubtless, will have taken every opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of NZ being the host nation. If I was National’s strategist, I would call an early election and get it out of the way before the World Cup, which has the potential for a major emotional backlash showing up at the polls if the All Blacks crap out again (I hasten to add though that I, as a lifelong rugby fan who has been known to react badly to the All Blacks abysmal history at the World Cup, will not be voting National under any circumstances and certainly not because I might be “feeling good” if they actually win the bloody thing at long last).
Labour’s Ad Hoc Legacy
What is Labour’s legacy after nine years in power, their longest time in office since the 1940s? Indisputably it did many good things. To take my own personal situation, as one example. Very recently I had to re-read and edit an oral history interview that I did way back in March 2004. In it I mentioned that my pay was about to be increased to $9 per hour, as that was to be the new minimum wage. I am now paid $14 per hour and the minimum wage is now $12 an hour. It’s not that many years ago that I was on $7 an hour. The minimum wage, which was never once increased during National’s nine years in power in the 90s, has been steadily increased under Labour, which also did many other things to improve workers’ conditions (ranging from introducing four weeks annual leave to abolishing the nightmarish Employment Contracts Act). Innovations such as Working For Families and Kiwisaver are positive moves and so popular that National has had to commit to keeping them. The controversial “social engineering” laws, such as those legalising prostitution and civil unions, and banning the use of “unreasonable” force on kids are all landmarks in NZ becoming a more civilised society (I am fully aware that there will be CAFCA members who disagree with me about this, so I stress that it is my personal opinion. CAFCA does not have a policy on such matters, they are not our issue, and the committee has never discussed them).
CAFCA, of course, does have opinions and policies on our issue and we were only too happy to publicly congratulate the Government for decisions such as staying out of the American-led criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq to stopping the sale of Auckland Airport; renationalising ACC, Air New Zealand and the railways; and creating Kiwibank – to name a few. All of these have been analysed in Watchdog over the past nine years, so I won’t go over them again, check them out at the Watchdog Website www.converge.org.nz/watchdog.
But too many of those moves were one offs, reluctant, populist kneejerk reactions to a crisis (such as the spectacular collapse of Air NZ) and/or the need to appear progressive in election year – both of which were factors in the decision to renationalise the railways. To give the most recent example – the last time CAFCA congratulated the Labour government was for its October 2008 decision to spend $40 million to buy the St James Station in the South Island high country for the explicit reason of stopping it falling into foreign ownership. I put out a press release (which the media picked up) saying: “This proves that its 2005 Overseas Investment Act is not working. At the time that was touted as affording protection to ‘iconic’ land. The Government obviously doesn’t trust its own law to do that when it opted to spend $40 million to buy St James. In fact, all that Act does is put up a few more hoops for foreign buyers to jump through but it doesn’t actually stop them buying land, iconic or otherwise. There is a simpler, and much cheaper, solution than ad hoc multi-million dollar purchases to prevent NZ land being sold overseas – institute a legal regime that much more severely restricts foreign ownership of land, or ban it outright. That is the logical conclusion of what the Government has done in the case of St James Station and we call upon it to admit that and put such a regime in place as soon as possible” (9/10/08, “Helen. Don’t Just Stop At Saving St James Station From Foreign Ownership”).
Party Of Globalisation, Foreign Investment And Free Trade
And there’s the nub of the problem – Labour’s heart was never in being a genuinely progressive, Left government. It called itself Centre-Left but it was much more Centre than Left and plenty of its ideology and policies tilted to the Right. It never veered from the politically correct championing of “the open economy, market forces, foreign investment, globalisation and free trade”. Just days before the 1999 election the doomed National government increased the threshold required for Overseas Investment Commission (now the Overseas Investment Office) consent from $10 million to $50 million. As soon as Labour won that election, we lobbied all Labour, Alliance and Green MPs urging them to roll that back. We got nowhere with Labour and that threshold has never been rolled back (it now stands at $100 million and the original draft of Michael Cullen’s 2005 Overseas Investment Act aimed to increase it to $250 million; Treasury wanted no threshold at all). By contrast, the Alliance and Greens were much more sympathetic and also happy to take up CAFCA’s offer of a briefing on the wider issue of foreign control (I went to Wellington to brief the Green caucus; Bill Rosenberg did likewise with the Alliance). In its nine years in power there was only one Labour MP prepared to be briefed by CAFCA – namely Tim Barnett, the former MP for Christchurch Central. Tim was also happy to meet with the Anti-Bases Campaign on several occasions re the Waihopai spybase (once taking part in an ABC overnight national strategy meeting in Marlborough on the subject) and his office played an invaluable role in getting a visa for Cora Fabros from the Philippines, whom ABC toured through NZ in July 08. It is an indictment of Helen Clark that she never made Tim a Minister. He was also our very good local MP for the whole time Labour was in power (boundary changes mean that we are now in another electorate, my third in the 26 years I’ve lived in the same house). He retired at the 08 election and although Labour Party social gatherings are not my natural habitat I made a point of going to his farewell party a couple of days after it, representing CAFCA and ABC, to thank him on behalf of both groups (and on behalf of my own family for things that he’d done for us).
Labour’s “legacy” on the issue of foreign control is that 2005 Overseas Investment Act. Every issue of Watchdog from 2003-05 inclusive carried a cover story about it, so I won’t go over it again, refresh your memory at the Watchdog Website. Labour was equally wedded to the “free trade” religion and, in September 2008, after negotiating a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements (to circumvent the abject failure of the World Trade Organisation to agree on the Doha Round) it excitedly announced the Holy Grail was in sight – namely the prospect of a Free Trade Agreement with the US via an extension of the existing P4 Agreement (full title: Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership). Check out www.nznotforsale.org for details. At Tim Barnett’s farewell party an outgoing Minister sought me out and told me what we need now is a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (do you remember the monumental and successful late 90s’ global campaign against the MAI?) but this time for the benefit of nation states against the transnational corporations. Interesting idea - but we didn’t hear a peep about it when the Minister was in power for nine years and it’s too late now. Perhaps CAFCA could ask National if we could brief their MPs about it.
As for foreign policy: Labour prided itself in “rebuilding“ the alliance with the US, sucking up to the war criminal Bush and his cronies. Yes, NZ stayed out of Iraq but it enthusiastically plunged into the Afghanistan War and the “War On Terror” – Ahmed Zaoui was NZ’s unique contribution to that chamber of horrors. The covert State of spies and spybases, such as Waihopai, had no more passionate champion than Helen Clark. And now that’s she’s abruptly gone Labour is headed by Phil Goff who, as Minister of Trade Negotiations, trumpeted that one of the greatest benefits of a US Free Trade Agreement would be that NZ businesses could get their snouts into the trough of US military contracts (he specifically singled out the big money to be made in the US Pacific territory of Guam, preparing infrastructure for the relocation of US Marines from Okinawa in Japan, where massive anti-bases protests over many years have forced the US and Japanese governments to make some concessions to overwhelming public opinion). Goff has been personally affected by the “War on Terror” – his nephew, serving in the US military, is the only New Zealander to have been killed in Afghanistan. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy for the family but the Rightwing media sickeningly milked this for all it was worth, for the propaganda value of New Zealand “doing its bit”.
It Has Never Renounced The Ideology Of Rogernomics
Labour’s shortcomings in the area of foreign control need to be seen in the context of Labour’s overall ideology, one which hasn’t changed very much since the 1980s. Its 1999-08 front bench was full of veterans of the Rogernomics years and the new leadership team of Phil Goff and Annette King doesn’t signal any change from that. Labour was decimated in the 1990s as voters punished it for that madness, so it recognises Rogernomics as electoral poison but it has never actually renounced the ideology. Sir Roger Douglas has always taunted his old party that it has never repealed any of the laws that form the central tenets of Rogernomics and he is correct – they never have. As soon as Labour ran into the “business backlash” in its first year in office it backed off any suggestion of such change (workers are severely constrained in their legal ability to strike, but the mere threat of a capital strike by Big Business was enough to pull the Government into line). At best, they put a kinder face on the more brutal features of Rogernomics.
Labour never restored welfare benefits to the levels they were at before Ruth Richardson’s 1991 slashing cuts. Hundreds of thousands of kids remain in poverty and State “housing” for those at the bottom of the heap in Auckland was exposed as an outrage in many cases. Even some of the achievements that Labour boasted about, such as Kiwibank and four weeks leave were actually the work of minor parties (Jim Anderton fought hard to get Kiwibank established; initially, Clark and Cullen sneered at the idea and damned it with faint praise when it began). It went to great lengths to keep the Greens out of any coalition for the full nine years, opting instead for Winston Peters and Peter Dunne.
To conclude, Labour had a great chance to be a genuine progressive Left government, to substantially right the wrongs of the 1980s and 90s, but it let that slide, because its heart was not in it, fundamentally it has long been a party whose sole motivation is getting into, and holding onto, power. The rest of it is just means to that end. Labour has never had any doubt as to whom it is beholden, and it isn’t ordinary working New Zealanders. The party will spend at least the next three years working out how to more attractively package itself as the best party to administer capitalism, so that it’s ready when the public next decides to vote for “change”.
Winston Peters Out: Greens More Necessary Than Ever
New Zealand First can justifiably feel hard done by that it secured more party votes than Act but is out of Parliament, whereas Act, by virtue of Rodney Hide holding one electorate seat, gets five MPs, Ministers and a coalition with National. Hide and the media ran a very successful smear campaign against Peters, targeting him as a key prospective coalition partner of Labour and hence to be eliminated at all costs. It worked. None of the various serious allegations were proven but the mud stuck. Did Peters deserve it? Absolutely, because there was definitely fire with this smoke, and his arrogance and contempt in refusing to respond to the charges were what sank him. Despite his superficial nationalism and populism (which he rolled out whenever convenient, and always in election years, and which tapped into an ugly undercurrent of racism) CAFCA didn’t trust him or his party as far as we could throw them (which has proven to be right out of Parliament). We made our position clear on Winston Peters way back in the 1990s when he got into bed as National’s coalition partner and promptly turned his back on all the “nationalist” issues that he’d campaigned about. There have been suggestions that billionaire Owen Glenn was the modern day equivalent of the shonky “financiers” used to get rid of the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in the 1970s and to very nearly get rid of the Lange Labour government here in the 80s (remember the Maori Loans scandal, which was traced back to the US Central Intelligence Agency?). But I reject that comparison. Why would the CIA want to get rid of a Minister of Foreign Affairs who made it his central policy to suck up to the Bush regime? And why would the US want to destabilise a Government which proved itself a valuable ally in so many ways? Nope, Winston was finally undone by his own glaring contradictions, both personal and political.
The Greens confounded those who thought that Rod Donald’s tragic death just after the 2005 election would prove them to be a one man band. They actually increased their share of the party vote and got more MPs as a result. They now have nine MPs, which equals their best result (1999, when they first came into Parliament in their own right, having previously been part of the former Alliance). They can truly claim to be the only real MMP party in that their Parliamentary existence is entirely dependent on getting above the 5% party vote barrier, with no electorate seat safety net to fall back on (Act used to claim that it was the only real MMP party but its negligible share of the party vote means that it is now entirely dependent on Hide retaining his electorate seat). The Greens have carved out a niche in the NZ political spectrum (albeit one that has never managed to attract 10% of the vote in any election, sometimes hovering perilously close to 5%) and in the absence of any real Leftwing party in Parliament, their continued presence is vital. I admire their forbearance as they continue to go it alone after being rejected and used as a doormat by Labour for nine years. And Green MPs, particularly the likes of Keith Locke, are prepared to play a full role in the parliament of the streets, in the campaigns of all manner of activist groups (for many years now Keith has played an active role at the Waihopai spybase protests organised by the Anti-Bases Campaign). In that aspect alone, they provide a conspicuous contrast to MPs of the other parties.
From my perspective as a political activist, having a National government in power makes my job easier, as they are the traditional enemy. All the people who hibernate during Labour governments because “we musn’t do anything to help National get into power” suddenly rediscover their activist zeal when it does. This Tory government is headed by a smiley faced, seemingly inoffensive sort of fellow (he’s obviously studied how Tony Blair projected himself), who has started off with some tactically clever “inclusive” moves. But it won’t take long for National, let alone Act, to revert to type. Then watch the old proverbial hit the fan (and for the Maori Party to cop the most splatter). We are in for interesting times and CAFCA will be in the thick of it.
HEEEERE’S JOHNNNY!
- Murray Horton
The definitive scene in Stanley Kubrick’s classic supernatural horror film “The Shining” was when the character played by Jack Nicholson has gone mad and is hunting his terrified family with an axe. He uses it to smash his way through the bathroom door and then sticks his insanely grinning face in to announce “Here’s Johnny!” (an ironic send up of the famous intro used at the start of his TV shows by US entertainment icon, Johnny Carson). That vivid visual image best encapsulates my reaction to National’s 2008 electoral victory, the closest possible to a landslide under MMP. Goodness, does that mean that I’m comparing nice smiley Johnny Key to a homicidal maniac? That remains to be seen but I have the uncomfortable feeling that we’re now sharing a small room with somebody who has an axe. To develop further the analogy with that wonderful movie – the axe murderer was driven mad by malevolent ghosts (and he ended up frozen to death in the snow). Well, there’s plenty of spooks and zombies in Key’s supporting cast of hacks, hasbeens and halfwits and I wouldn’t put it past them to shove our John out into the snow once he’s no further use to them. For a leader who campaigned on the platform of “a fresh face” and “change” (which is definitely the only similarity he can claim to Barack Obama), there’s a deadening look of sameness about the “new” National/Act government, not to mention Peter Dunne (pronounced Dunny) that sinkingshipjumpingrat par excellence.
Are New Zealanders Stupid?
Inevitably, following National’s comprehensive and long predicted victory there was an outpouring of rage and despair from some people. Most futile was the reaction to blame it on “stupid” New Zealanders. This is understandable but quite wrong. So, New Zealanders must have been “stupid” every time they voted in a National government (Piggy Muldoon anyone? Or the Bolger/Birch/Richardson version?). Come to think of it, they certainly must have been terminally bloody stupid to re-elect the 1980s Roger Douglas Labour government, if you subscribe to the stupidity theory of politics. And I have no doubt that Tory voters must have had the same “stupid bastards” reaction when their fellow citizens voted in, although not so often, Labour governments, even a Labour-Alliance government for all of three years (my late father - who voted National nearly all of his life until his final decade – was a great believer in the inherent stupidity of Labour voters. I grew up hearing the expression that “if Labour ran a red arsed baboon in Sydenham it would be elected”. In the case of John Kirk, he was dead right). But, tempting as it is, “stupidity” is not the reason and nor is it even worth seriously examining.
People vote the way they do (and change their allegiance) for a wide variety of reasons. A very small number, presumably the much less than 5% who voted for Act, want a far Right government with a prominent role for their undead messiah, Sir Roger Douglas. Moral conservatives would have voted against Labour for laws such as the deliberately mislabelled “anti-smacking” act, legalisation of prostitution, civil unions, etc, plus the carefully fostered perception that the Government was running a “politically correct nanny State”. This was the local version of the “culture wars” that have split American politics asunder for years (and continue to do so, as evidenced by the simultaneous votes in California for Obama and against gay marriage). “What’s in it for me?” a la tax cuts was definitely a factor and Labour fell into the trap of a bidding war on which party would cut taxes the most. The obvious contradiction between cutting taxes and reducing public services (while also promising a spend up on infrastructure, etc) shouldn’t take too long to emerge. And then the swinging voters will direct their anger at the National government, with the media full of stories of people whose Dear Old Mums have died while on the hospital waiting list.
Some others use their two votes tactically. To cite my late father again – naturally, he voted against MMP in the referendum that led to its introduction, but he then took to it with gusto and in the first MMP election, in 1996, he used his two votes to support National and Jim Anderton. If you accepted his political logic (I didn’t), it all made perfect sense (in the final two elections of his life, 1999 & 02, he reverted to voting Labour and Anderton, because National had become too free market and far Right for an old Muldoonist. And he admired Helen Clark as “our strongest Prime Minister since Piggy”).
But the vast majority of those who voted Labour out (and it’s worth remembering that 2008 saw the second lowest turnout in decades) did so for nothing more articulate than “it’s time for a change”. There was no deep visceral loathing of Helen Clark as there had been for Muldoon in 1984, and despite the inevitable scandals that trip up any Government and the problems with coalition partners that are a hallmark of MMP, they were nothing compared to their equivalents which saw the 1996-99 National government implode, dumping their Prime Minister and coalition partner along the way to electoral defeat. Labour ran its own most disciplined government ever, with unswerving loyalty to Clark and minimal problems (until the final few months) with its New Zealand First coalition partner. Key ran a very narrowly focused campaign from the moment he was elected National’s Leader which stressed how little he would change things from Labour (or, rather, he said that he wouldn’t. We’ll now find out if what he said and what he does are two very different things. It was exactly that two faced lying under the last Labour and National governments before MMP that saw it voted in as a new electoral system to stop that misrepresentation and arrogance of power). Basically people have voted for a change of face and a minimal change of policies, having been promised that there won’t be much deviation from what was business as usual under Labour.
Labour Was On Borrowed Time From 05
It needs to be remembered that Labour came very, very close to losing the 2005 election, which means that a substantial chunk of the electorate was sick of it a full three years before it went out. And that was when National was headed by Labour’s greatest asset, the fumbling, bumbling Don Brash with his openly declared far Right agenda. Labour’s fate was sealed when Nicky Hager’s 2006 book “The Hollow Men” delivered the coup de grace to Brash – after that, he was, in his own immortal phrase, gone by lunchtime – and National made a special effort to pick a new Leader whose central quality had to be that he wasn’t Don Brash (so, Nicky, if you’re reading this, it was all your fault). Personally, I regret that National didn’t stick with its previous Brash/Key leadership team, as I had the perfect collective name for them – DonKey.
Election night 05 was a real nailbiter, with Labour eventually emerging with a majority of one over National and then followed the usual tedious weeks of negotiations before a deal was stitched up with Winston Peters (which is why National, Act and their media mates made damned sure that he and his party were neutralised before the 08 election). Labour was at its apex in the 2002 election when they were given a dream run by National under Bill English running possibly the most inept campaign in New Zealand’s history, which led to National’s worst ever result (the only thing that I can remember Bill saying from that campaign was the immortal line “Oi loike poies” when filmed eating one. Good on you mate, so do I).
Labour harboured the conceit that it would win enough votes to govern alone in 2002 (the desire to be shot of all this MMP nonsense is also shared by National, which came much closer to being able to realise it in the 08 election) until it came a gutser because of that bloody Nicky Hager again and his earlier book "Seeds Of Distrust", which meticulously documented (as Nicky always does) the importation of genetically engineered-contaminated corn seeds into New Zealand by transnational corporations, the Government’s changing of the rules to retrospectively legalise that importation, and then concealing the fact that this corn was planted and harvested in the normal commercial manner. The book threw Clark completely off balance and publicly revealed a very ugly side of her personality. The Labour/Alliance government (remember the Alliance?) was caught out having covered up a very serious breach of New Zealand’s supposed GE free status, and Clark opted for the standard Muldoonist response – abuse and attack. The Greens lost votes and traction by not strongly picking up the explosive revelations in the book, instead seeming to regard it as an annoying distraction on their inevitable progress to Cabinet posts. "We didn’t know about it either" was their heartfelt plaint. Clark’s attacks put them firmly on the back foot and both parties suffered at the polls, as voters went elsewhere. But Labour still won easily, and repaid the Greens’ support by keeping them out of the resulting coalition (as they did for the full nine years they were in office).
So, effectively Labour had been on notice since at least 2005, if not earlier, that it was a Government on borrowed time and that its fate was sealed unless it could pull something out of the hat. National had already produced a fluffy white rabbit of its own, called John; from the moment he became National’s Leader, the media lauded him as the Chosen One and the polls gave him and National a lead which they never lost. It soon became clear that all that Labour could offer was to attack Key, in an eerie echo of the negative attack campaign on Barack Obama run by the other John, McCain, on behalf of the other incumbent party in the other election of 2008. To use the rugby analogy, it was a classic case of playing the man and not the ball. Even more damningly, it didn’t work.
I knew that Labour was buggered when, a fortnight out from election day, they were caught desperately trying to dig up 20 year old dirt from Key’s highly profitable career as a money trader (they found nothing and the accusations rebounded on them. Both Labour and the media didn’t dare raise the larger question that the money trading business in which Key made his fortune is basically a crime per se and has got the global economy into the mess that it is currently in. A Labour Party which has never renounced Rogernomics, only that Rogernomics is electoral poison, would never raise that fundamental question). To add insult to injury, just days out from the election, Helen Clark offered a formal coalition and Cabinet posts to the Greens, after stabbing them in the back and taking them for granted for nine years. She knew then that she and her Government were finished – her election night resignation as Party leader was no spontaneous gesture – so it was a totally empty offer.
Maori Party Are The New Cannon Fodder
So what can we expect from Key’s National government? He has gone to great efforts to stress that it will be Centre Right, with the emphasis on centrism. Getting the Maori Party into the coalition is a very clever tactic on his behalf and potentially marks a seismic shift in the NZ political landscape, with Maori maybe ending the alliance with Labour that had lasted since the 1930s. The Maori Party grew directly out of Maori in the Labour Party finally having had a gutsfull of decades of patronising neglect and being taken for granted, with the foreshore and seabed issue being the last straw. The dislike of Labour evidenced by Tariana Turia, Party Co-Leader and former Labour Cabinet Minister, is evident to all. But whether entering a coalition is as beneficial for the Maori Party as it is for National remains to be seen. In the seven Maori seats in the 2008 election, Labour easily won the party vote over both the Maori Party and National, so going into this coalition flies in the face of the great majority of Maori seat voters, who clearly backed Labour. And junior coalition partners are the ones who are used as cannon fodder by the Government. In 1996 New Zealand First swept all the Maori seats and entered into coalition with National, trumpeting itself as the replacement for Labour as the party for Maori, with Winston Peters as Treasurer. That lasted all of two years, before Peters was fired, the coalition ended, the party split and, in 1999, Labour won back all the Maori seats.
This National/Act/United Future/Maori coalition, with Ministerial posts outside Cabinet for the leaders of all three junior partners (but none for Sir Roger Douglas) is being touted as Key being able to use the Maori Party on the “Left” to neutralise Act on the Right. However it is a mistake to think of the Maori Party as being Left – it is very much a party based on race, not class (since the Alliance imploded and disappeared from Parliament at the 2002 election, there hasn’t been any truly class-based party in Parliament) and it has flirted with the Tories ever since it came into Parliament at the 05 election, including when National was under the far Right leadership of Don Brash. Key has promised to review the foreshore and seabed law (no big hassle, because National voted against it) and, in a major flipflop, has backed off his promise to abolish the Maori seats, which would destroy the Maori Party. This will lose Key support form the pakeha racists who flocked to National when Brash deliberately chose Maori bashing as a central policy, soaring in the polls as a result and forcing Labour to drop its policies which “discriminated in favour of Maori”. Whether this coalition lasts any longer than the fractious 1996-98 one which fatally wounded the last National government remains to be seen. And whether Maori seat voters punish the Maori Party for ignoring their 2008 overwhelming party vote for Labour will be a fascinating feature of the 2011 election. I have no doubt that National will happily use its new Maori Party Ministers to take the heat from its policies which will inevitably bash the poor (the “underclass” that Key highlighted when he first became National Leader; we haven’t heard so much about them from him since), of whom a disproportionate chunk are Maori.
How Many Ways Can You Spell Privatisation?
More specifically, what can CAFCA expect from National? Throughout 2007 and 08 Key was continually embarrassed by several of his senior colleagues, such as his Deputy, Bill English, and Maurice Williamson, blurting out a wish list – “sell Kiwibank, introduce toll roads”, etc, etc! Watchdog has regularly analysed this evidence of a hidden agenda of privatisation and user pays, those discredited relics of the 1980s and 90s (which is where National and Labour’s front benches cut their teeth). For example, see my article “Sharks In the Water. Privatisation Rears Its Ugly Head Again”, which was the cover story in Watchdog 118, August 2008, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/18/01.htm. Key has pledged not to sell any public assets, such as Kiwibank or the newly renationalised KiwiRail in National’s first term – which, of course, leaves State assets wide open to be flogged off in any subsequent term (here’s hoping but there never has been a single term National government. For his compulsive desire to blurt out the truth, Maurice Williamson was punished by being left out of Key’s Cabinet).
In the first term, we can expect to see the wholesale introduction of public private partnerships (PPP) in infrastructure projects such as roading (Labour was enthusiastically going the same way); the partial opening up of ACC to competition by insurance transnational corporations (National says this isn’t privatisation), and much more private sector involvement right across the board but heavily in sectors such as health, education and welfare. The Resource Management Act will be diluted to make it more “business friendly” – it’s been a target of Big Business ever since its introduction. National is an even more rabid champion of the “open economy and globalisation”, meaning more unfettered foreign investment and free trade agreements, including the Holy Grail, one with the US (which Labour kicked off). The very first thing that Key did, as a sop to Act, was to delay (pending a review) the proposed carbon emissions trading scheme, although he was at pains to stress that NZ will not be backing away from our obligations under the Kyoto Treaty. Considering that Rodney Hide campaigned on the basis that global warming is a “hoax”, this is hardly surprising, but it makes NZ a flat Earth laughingstock to the rest of the world, to whom global warming is the biggest issue bar none.
In foreign policy, the close ties with the US that Labour worked so assiduously to repair will be strengthened. Barack Osama has pledged to get US troops out of Iraq (a war that Labour kept NZ out of; National would have gone in shoulder to shoulder with Bush) but only to redeploy them into Afghanistan, which he has proclaimed to be the American Empire’s “real war”. NZ already has troops in Afghanistan, primarily engaged in reconstruction in one comparatively peaceful province. Expect the US to “request” that its allies, such as NZ, commit front line troops to the intensified Afghan war and to support Obama’s reckless new emphasis on attacking into Pakistan (shades of the Vietnam War, where the US spread it across the border into both Cambodia and Laos – and lost in all three countries).
One consolation for Labour is that if you it had to lose an election, this was definitely the best one to lose. The global and domestic economy are in freefall, it’s the biggest crisis in capitalism since the 1930s Great Depression and it’s all entirely manmade, created by the truly gargantuan greed and stupidity of the finance capitalists who captured the system and milked it dry for their own immense profit. I’m touched by the naïve faith that some people have expressed in John Key, who became a multi-millionaire as a wheeler dealer in that very same financial market, as the best leader during a time of unprecedented crisis in that market. Yes, he made a fortune but only by using money to make money; he’s never made anything or run anything whatsoever in the real economy (defined as things that you can drop on your foot). It is the money men who have got global capitalism into the current mess, why would anyone think that a money man will know how to get little old New Zealand out of it? We’re a long way from the rest of the world and the tsunami which is drowning it has not yet reached us – but rest assured that it’s on the way. A Prime Minister presiding over an economy in recession, maybe even depression, with rapidly growing unemployment and every other negative symptom that will accompany capitalism’s biggest bust in nearly a century, is going to have a very rough time of it as the people take it out on the Government.
Let’s See If Key Lasts The Distance As Prime Minister
He is National’s main asset, because of his inoffensive personality and his (public) willingness in the election buildup to say or do anything that would ensure that National got into power. But plenty in his own party, let alone his Rightwing coalition partner and Big Business and the transnational corporate media, are angered by his whole series of flipflops, his selling of National as “Labour lite”. There are plenty of unreconstructed Rogernauts (including dear old Sir Roger himself, of course) in National and Act, who entertain fantasies about “finishing the business”, whose standard denial of reality for the past two decades has been that if only they’d been able to inflict more pain there would have been some gain. They belong to “the operation was a great success, the patient died” school of politics and economics. At the same time as the rest of the world is suddenly rediscovering the essential role of the State - and taxpayers’ money - in saving capitalism from itself, and even the US has taken a step to the Left (but only in US terms), New Zealand now has a Government committed to the market forces bullshit that got us (and the world) into this mess. What exquisite timing! To refresh your memories about who these people are that are operating in National’s shadows, read Jeremy Agar’s review of the 2008 documentary “The Hollow Men” in Watchdog 1118, August 2008, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/18/08.htm.
If the far Right gets sufficiently sick of Key for being insufficiently politically correct, they will simply dump him. It’s what the Jenny Shipley faction did to Jim Bolger in the late 90s, when National was last in power; it’s what the Rogernauts did to David Lange when his Labour government was tearing itself apart in the late 80s. Rogernomics was rushed through, in direct contradiction to Labour’s 1984 election manifesto, in response to a “financial crisis”; Richardson’s Ruthanasia, likewise, was rushed through in direct contradiction to National’s 1990 election promises, and in response to another “financial crisis’. There really is a financial crisis this time, a global one, and the old Rogernauts must be twitching to slash and burn, which is all they know how to do, in order “to save us”.
Actually there is one wild card factor that could consign National to being a one term government. In 1999, Jenny Shipley, in all seriousness, reckoned that the All Blacks crashing out of the Rugby World Cup impacted badly on her Government in that year’s election (if they’d won, she said that National would have benefitted from the feel good factor). The 2011 election coincides with NZ hosting the World Cup. If the All Blacks crash out yet again, and at home, the national mood will be ugly (New Zealanders get much more passionate about rugby than politics). The public, who will be looking for someone to blame, don’t get a vote for the Rugby Union bosses or the All Blacks’ coach, so they’ll stick it up the Government which, doubtless, will have taken every opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of NZ being the host nation. If I was National’s strategist, I would call an early election and get it out of the way before the World Cup, which has the potential for a major emotional backlash showing up at the polls if the All Blacks crap out again (I hasten to add though that I, as a lifelong rugby fan who has been known to react badly to the All Blacks abysmal history at the World Cup, will not be voting National under any circumstances and certainly not because I might be “feeling good” if they actually win the bloody thing at long last).
Labour’s Ad Hoc Legacy
What is Labour’s legacy after nine years in power, their longest time in office since the 1940s? Indisputably it did many good things. To take my own personal situation, as one example. Very recently I had to re-read and edit an oral history interview that I did way back in March 2004. In it I mentioned that my pay was about to be increased to $9 per hour, as that was to be the new minimum wage. I am now paid $14 per hour and the minimum wage is now $12 an hour. It’s not that many years ago that I was on $7 an hour. The minimum wage, which was never once increased during National’s nine years in power in the 90s, has been steadily increased under Labour, which also did many other things to improve workers’ conditions (ranging from introducing four weeks annual leave to abolishing the nightmarish Employment Contracts Act). Innovations such as Working For Families and Kiwisaver are positive moves and so popular that National has had to commit to keeping them. The controversial “social engineering” laws, such as those legalising prostitution and civil unions, and banning the use of “unreasonable” force on kids are all landmarks in NZ becoming a more civilised society (I am fully aware that there will be CAFCA members who disagree with me about this, so I stress that it is my personal opinion. CAFCA does not have a policy on such matters, they are not our issue, and the committee has never discussed them).
CAFCA, of course, does have opinions and policies on our issue and we were only too happy to publicly congratulate the Government for decisions such as staying out of the American-led criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq to stopping the sale of Auckland Airport; renationalising ACC, Air New Zealand and the railways; and creating Kiwibank – to name a few. All of these have been analysed in Watchdog over the past nine years, so I won’t go over them again, check them out at the Watchdog Website www.converge.org.nz/watchdog.
But too many of those moves were one offs, reluctant, populist kneejerk reactions to a crisis (such as the spectacular collapse of Air NZ) and/or the need to appear progressive in election year – both of which were factors in the decision to renationalise the railways. To give the most recent example – the last time CAFCA congratulated the Labour government was for its October 2008 decision to spend $40 million to buy the St James Station in the South Island high country for the explicit reason of stopping it falling into foreign ownership. I put out a press release (which the media picked up) saying: “This proves that its 2005 Overseas Investment Act is not working. At the time that was touted as affording protection to ‘iconic’ land. The Government obviously doesn’t trust its own law to do that when it opted to spend $40 million to buy St James. In fact, all that Act does is put up a few more hoops for foreign buyers to jump through but it doesn’t actually stop them buying land, iconic or otherwise. There is a simpler, and much cheaper, solution than ad hoc multi-million dollar purchases to prevent NZ land being sold overseas – institute a legal regime that much more severely restricts foreign ownership of land, or ban it outright. That is the logical conclusion of what the Government has done in the case of St James Station and we call upon it to admit that and put such a regime in place as soon as possible” (9/10/08, “Helen. Don’t Just Stop At Saving St James Station From Foreign Ownership”).
Party Of Globalisation, Foreign Investment And Free Trade
And there’s the nub of the problem – Labour’s heart was never in being a genuinely progressive, Left government. It called itself Centre-Left but it was much more Centre than Left and plenty of its ideology and policies tilted to the Right. It never veered from the politically correct championing of “the open economy, market forces, foreign investment, globalisation and free trade”. Just days before the 1999 election the doomed National government increased the threshold required for Overseas Investment Commission (now the Overseas Investment Office) consent from $10 million to $50 million. As soon as Labour won that election, we lobbied all Labour, Alliance and Green MPs urging them to roll that back. We got nowhere with Labour and that threshold has never been rolled back (it now stands at $100 million and the original draft of Michael Cullen’s 2005 Overseas Investment Act aimed to increase it to $250 million; Treasury wanted no threshold at all). By contrast, the Alliance and Greens were much more sympathetic and also happy to take up CAFCA’s offer of a briefing on the wider issue of foreign control (I went to Wellington to brief the Green caucus; Bill Rosenberg did likewise with the Alliance). In its nine years in power there was only one Labour MP prepared to be briefed by CAFCA – namely Tim Barnett, the former MP for Christchurch Central. Tim was also happy to meet with the Anti-Bases Campaign on several occasions re the Waihopai spybase (once taking part in an ABC overnight national strategy meeting in Marlborough on the subject) and his office played an invaluable role in getting a visa for Cora Fabros from the Philippines, whom ABC toured through NZ in July 08. It is an indictment of Helen Clark that she never made Tim a Minister. He was also our very good local MP for the whole time Labour was in power (boundary changes mean that we are now in another electorate, my third in the 26 years I’ve lived in the same house). He retired at the 08 election and although Labour Party social gatherings are not my natural habitat I made a point of going to his farewell party a couple of days after it, representing CAFCA and ABC, to thank him on behalf of both groups (and on behalf of my own family for things that he’d done for us).
Labour’s “legacy” on the issue of foreign control is that 2005 Overseas Investment Act. Every issue of Watchdog from 2003-05 inclusive carried a cover story about it, so I won’t go over it again, refresh your memory at the Watchdog Website. Labour was equally wedded to the “free trade” religion and, in September 2008, after negotiating a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements (to circumvent the abject failure of the World Trade Organisation to agree on the Doha Round) it excitedly announced the Holy Grail was in sight – namely the prospect of a Free Trade Agreement with the US via an extension of the existing P4 Agreement (full title: Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership). Check out www.nznotforsale.org for details. At Tim Barnett’s farewell party an outgoing Minister sought me out and told me what we need now is a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (do you remember the monumental and successful late 90s’ global campaign against the MAI?) but this time for the benefit of nation states against the transnational corporations. Interesting idea - but we didn’t hear a peep about it when the Minister was in power for nine years and it’s too late now. Perhaps CAFCA could ask National if we could brief their MPs about it.
As for foreign policy: Labour prided itself in “rebuilding“ the alliance with the US, sucking up to the war criminal Bush and his cronies. Yes, NZ stayed out of Iraq but it enthusiastically plunged into the Afghanistan War and the “War On Terror” – Ahmed Zaoui was NZ’s unique contribution to that chamber of horrors. The covert State of spies and spybases, such as Waihopai, had no more passionate champion than Helen Clark. And now that’s she’s abruptly gone Labour is headed by Phil Goff who, as Minister of Trade Negotiations, trumpeted that one of the greatest benefits of a US Free Trade Agreement would be that NZ businesses could get their snouts into the trough of US military contracts (he specifically singled out the big money to be made in the US Pacific territory of Guam, preparing infrastructure for the relocation of US Marines from Okinawa in Japan, where massive anti-bases protests over many years have forced the US and Japanese governments to make some concessions to overwhelming public opinion). Goff has been personally affected by the “War on Terror” – his nephew, serving in the US military, is the only New Zealander to have been killed in Afghanistan. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy for the family but the Rightwing media sickeningly milked this for all it was worth, for the propaganda value of New Zealand “doing its bit”.
It Has Never Renounced The Ideology Of Rogernomics
Labour’s shortcomings in the area of foreign control need to be seen in the context of Labour’s overall ideology, one which hasn’t changed very much since the 1980s. Its 1999-08 front bench was full of veterans of the Rogernomics years and the new leadership team of Phil Goff and Annette King doesn’t signal any change from that. Labour was decimated in the 1990s as voters punished it for that madness, so it recognises Rogernomics as electoral poison but it has never actually renounced the ideology. Sir Roger Douglas has always taunted his old party that it has never repealed any of the laws that form the central tenets of Rogernomics and he is correct – they never have. As soon as Labour ran into the “business backlash” in its first year in office it backed off any suggestion of such change (workers are severely constrained in their legal ability to strike, but the mere threat of a capital strike by Big Business was enough to pull the Government into line). At best, they put a kinder face on the more brutal features of Rogernomics.
Labour never restored welfare benefits to the levels they were at before Ruth Richardson’s 1991 slashing cuts. Hundreds of thousands of kids remain in poverty and State “housing” for those at the bottom of the heap in Auckland was exposed as an outrage in many cases. Even some of the achievements that Labour boasted about, such as Kiwibank and four weeks leave were actually the work of minor parties (Jim Anderton fought hard to get Kiwibank established; initially, Clark and Cullen sneered at the idea and damned it with faint praise when it began). It went to great lengths to keep the Greens out of any coalition for the full nine years, opting instead for Winston Peters and Peter Dunne.
To conclude, Labour had a great chance to be a genuine progressive Left government, to substantially right the wrongs of the 1980s and 90s, but it let that slide, because its heart was not in it, fundamentally it has long been a party whose sole motivation is getting into, and holding onto, power. The rest of it is just means to that end. Labour has never had any doubt as to whom it is beholden, and it isn’t ordinary working New Zealanders. The party will spend at least the next three years working out how to more attractively package itself as the best party to administer capitalism, so that it’s ready when the public next decides to vote for “change”.
Winston Peters Out: Greens More Necessary Than Ever
New Zealand First can justifiably feel hard done by that it secured more party votes than Act but is out of Parliament, whereas Act, by virtue of Rodney Hide holding one electorate seat, gets five MPs, Ministers and a coalition with National. Hide and the media ran a very successful smear campaign against Peters, targeting him as a key prospective coalition partner of Labour and hence to be eliminated at all costs. It worked. None of the various serious allegations were proven but the mud stuck. Did Peters deserve it? Absolutely, because there was definitely fire with this smoke, and his arrogance and contempt in refusing to respond to the charges were what sank him. Despite his superficial nationalism and populism (which he rolled out whenever convenient, and always in election years, and which tapped into an ugly undercurrent of racism) CAFCA didn’t trust him or his party as far as we could throw them (which has proven to be right out of Parliament). We made our position clear on Winston Peters way back in the 1990s when he got into bed as National’s coalition partner and promptly turned his back on all the “nationalist” issues that he’d campaigned about. There have been suggestions that billionaire Owen Glenn was the modern day equivalent of the shonky “financiers” used to get rid of the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in the 1970s and to very nearly get rid of the Lange Labour government here in the 80s (remember the Maori Loans scandal, which was traced back to the US Central Intelligence Agency?). But I reject that comparison. Why would the CIA want to get rid of a Minister of Foreign Affairs who made it his central policy to suck up to the Bush regime? And why would the US want to destabilise a Government which proved itself a valuable ally in so many ways? Nope, Winston was finally undone by his own glaring contradictions, both personal and political.
The Greens confounded those who thought that Rod Donald’s tragic death just after the 2005 election would prove them to be a one man band. They actually increased their share of the party vote and got more MPs as a result. They now have nine MPs, which equals their best result (1999, when they first came into Parliament in their own right, having previously been part of the former Alliance). They can truly claim to be the only real MMP party in that their Parliamentary existence is entirely dependent on getting above the 5% party vote barrier, with no electorate seat safety net to fall back on (Act used to claim that it was the only real MMP party but its negligible share of the party vote means that it is now entirely dependent on Hide retaining his electorate seat). The Greens have carved out a niche in the NZ political spectrum (albeit one that has never managed to attract 10% of the vote in any election, sometimes hovering perilously close to 5%) and in the absence of any real Leftwing party in Parliament, their continued presence is vital. I admire their forbearance as they continue to go it alone after being rejected and used as a doormat by Labour for nine years. And Green MPs, particularly the likes of Keith Locke, are prepared to play a full role in the parliament of the streets, in the campaigns of all manner of activist groups (for many years now Keith has played an active role at the Waihopai spybase protests organised by the Anti-Bases Campaign). In that aspect alone, they provide a conspicuous contrast to MPs of the other parties.
From my perspective as a political activist, having a National government in power makes my job easier, as they are the traditional enemy. All the people who hibernate during Labour governments because “we musn’t do anything to help National get into power” suddenly rediscover their activist zeal when it does. This Tory government is headed by a smiley faced, seemingly inoffensive sort of fellow (he’s obviously studied how Tony Blair projected himself), who has started off with some tactically clever “inclusive” moves. But it won’t take long for National, let alone Act, to revert to type. Then watch the old proverbial hit the fan (and for the Maori Party to cop the most splatter). We are in for interesting times and CAFCA will be in the thick of it.
02 November 2008
Article in Time Magazine
End of the Toll Road?
By Roy Eccleston
The financial alchemists at Macquarie Group, Australia's biggest investment bank, never managed to turn lead into gold, but they hit on the next best thing: turning asphalt into cash. In May, the bank's shareholders welcomed a $1.3 billion profit, thanks largely to a new way of looking at highways, airports and power stations.
The idea behind the Macquarie model is to borrow a lot of money cheaply, buy infrastructure assets with a guaranteed cash flow, then sell those assets to the public, letting shareholders take over the debt. Macquarie and imitators like Australia's Babcock & Brown make money at every step, with fees for the deal, for advice, and for managing the assets. Macquarie runs toll roads in America, bridges in Portugal, French autoroutes, a tunnel in Germany, and airports from Sydney to Copenhagen. About 290 million people ride its buses each year, and 17 million light its gas.
For investors, all this looked good, because roads and bridges with little competition should produce a steady return via tolls for generations. But with asset prices falling and easy debt a thing of the past, some believe the Macquarie model is in for a shakeup. JP Morgan's Brian Johnson says it is "likely dead."
Macquarie insists that its distributions to shareholders are paid strictly from cash, but other analysts say they're often funded by new rounds of refinancing. Steve Johnson, a former Macquarie staffer turned financial adviser, says the bank has managed to borrow ever-rising sums against its assets because "credit markets were more and more willing to lend. That game is over."
Macquarie's investments are much broader than infrastructure, and new CEO Nicholas Moore argues that with little exposure to Wall Street's problems and $14 billion in cash, the bank can easily refinance debts. The recent credit crunch, however, has made the market cautious. On Oct. 14 Macquarie Group's shares were trading at around $24 ($A35), two-thirds off their peak of $85 in May 2007. And Babcock & Brown had tumbled from around $28 to $1.20.
B&B runs $55 billion worth of infrastructure assets, including ports in Britain, an Irish phone company, real estate across Italy, France, Germany and Japan, a fleet of jets, Australian gas, American rail stock, even a telecom cable under San Francisco Bay. Now the credit crunch is forcing it to sell off assets to cut its debt, estimated to total $35 billion.
"They built their house on the beach," says Tim Morris, an analyst with stockbroker WiseOwl.com. "Now that the storms have come, they can't help but watch their house subside into the ocean." And Macquarie? More diverse sources of revenue mean "it's better built to weather the storm," Morris says. But the borrow-to-buy infrastructure model "is dead in the water."
High debt levels aren't the only problem with the Macquarie-model funds, according to a tough review by corporate governance service RiskMetrics. It found that the funds also pay too much for assets and charge too much in fees, and that their operations lack transparency. "Our real concern is disclosure," says director Dean Paatsch. "The investment funds are asset vehicles that have outsourced 100% of the assets' management to a third-party company, but the terms � are not known."
Paatsch says that in the current market turmoil, the lack of such information erodes confidence. Investors whose shares in a fund lose most of their value would normally want to sack the manager, but with the Mac model, "you don't know what your options are." In the case of B&B Power, for example, "if you sack the manager you'd end up in the ridiculous situation where you'd pay them 25 years' worth of management fees — that's crazy." The review also noted that the funds are allowed to act in ways that normal companies are not, paying dividends, for example, from capital or borrowings rather than profit.
In B&B's case, warnings had been sounded for some time, including from inside the company. In an internal memo published in Australia's Fairfax newspapers in August, a disgruntled executive complained of a "culture of greed." In other companies, he wrote, "acquired projects are actually required to generate a certain benchmark return before bonus payouts take place. Instead, we have created an environment where senior people are rewarded for ... ginning up rosy projections to justify their rewards.''
B&B says it's got the message that it needs to change, but it doesn't agree the Mac model is dead. It is sacking a quarter of its 1,600 staff and selling off assets like Spanish wind farms and a Tasmanian power station. New CEO Michael Larkin says deals will be curtailed and executive pay based solidly on "investment outcomes." It remains to be seen if those remedies have come in time to save the patient.
By Roy Eccleston
The financial alchemists at Macquarie Group, Australia's biggest investment bank, never managed to turn lead into gold, but they hit on the next best thing: turning asphalt into cash. In May, the bank's shareholders welcomed a $1.3 billion profit, thanks largely to a new way of looking at highways, airports and power stations.
The idea behind the Macquarie model is to borrow a lot of money cheaply, buy infrastructure assets with a guaranteed cash flow, then sell those assets to the public, letting shareholders take over the debt. Macquarie and imitators like Australia's Babcock & Brown make money at every step, with fees for the deal, for advice, and for managing the assets. Macquarie runs toll roads in America, bridges in Portugal, French autoroutes, a tunnel in Germany, and airports from Sydney to Copenhagen. About 290 million people ride its buses each year, and 17 million light its gas.
For investors, all this looked good, because roads and bridges with little competition should produce a steady return via tolls for generations. But with asset prices falling and easy debt a thing of the past, some believe the Macquarie model is in for a shakeup. JP Morgan's Brian Johnson says it is "likely dead."
Macquarie insists that its distributions to shareholders are paid strictly from cash, but other analysts say they're often funded by new rounds of refinancing. Steve Johnson, a former Macquarie staffer turned financial adviser, says the bank has managed to borrow ever-rising sums against its assets because "credit markets were more and more willing to lend. That game is over."
Macquarie's investments are much broader than infrastructure, and new CEO Nicholas Moore argues that with little exposure to Wall Street's problems and $14 billion in cash, the bank can easily refinance debts. The recent credit crunch, however, has made the market cautious. On Oct. 14 Macquarie Group's shares were trading at around $24 ($A35), two-thirds off their peak of $85 in May 2007. And Babcock & Brown had tumbled from around $28 to $1.20.
B&B runs $55 billion worth of infrastructure assets, including ports in Britain, an Irish phone company, real estate across Italy, France, Germany and Japan, a fleet of jets, Australian gas, American rail stock, even a telecom cable under San Francisco Bay. Now the credit crunch is forcing it to sell off assets to cut its debt, estimated to total $35 billion.
"They built their house on the beach," says Tim Morris, an analyst with stockbroker WiseOwl.com. "Now that the storms have come, they can't help but watch their house subside into the ocean." And Macquarie? More diverse sources of revenue mean "it's better built to weather the storm," Morris says. But the borrow-to-buy infrastructure model "is dead in the water."
High debt levels aren't the only problem with the Macquarie-model funds, according to a tough review by corporate governance service RiskMetrics. It found that the funds also pay too much for assets and charge too much in fees, and that their operations lack transparency. "Our real concern is disclosure," says director Dean Paatsch. "The investment funds are asset vehicles that have outsourced 100% of the assets' management to a third-party company, but the terms � are not known."
Paatsch says that in the current market turmoil, the lack of such information erodes confidence. Investors whose shares in a fund lose most of their value would normally want to sack the manager, but with the Mac model, "you don't know what your options are." In the case of B&B Power, for example, "if you sack the manager you'd end up in the ridiculous situation where you'd pay them 25 years' worth of management fees — that's crazy." The review also noted that the funds are allowed to act in ways that normal companies are not, paying dividends, for example, from capital or borrowings rather than profit.
In B&B's case, warnings had been sounded for some time, including from inside the company. In an internal memo published in Australia's Fairfax newspapers in August, a disgruntled executive complained of a "culture of greed." In other companies, he wrote, "acquired projects are actually required to generate a certain benchmark return before bonus payouts take place. Instead, we have created an environment where senior people are rewarded for ... ginning up rosy projections to justify their rewards.''
B&B says it's got the message that it needs to change, but it doesn't agree the Mac model is dead. It is sacking a quarter of its 1,600 staff and selling off assets like Spanish wind farms and a Tasmanian power station. New CEO Michael Larkin says deals will be curtailed and executive pay based solidly on "investment outcomes." It remains to be seen if those remedies have come in time to save the patient.
Submissions called for on Free Trade Agreement with the US - get in quick - they close on December 8th
Submissions called for on FTA with US
(Submissions close on December 8)
Press Release by New Zealand Government at 3:13 pm, 15 Oct 2008
The Government is inviting submissions on New Zealand's upcoming FreeTrade Agreement negotiations with the United States as part of theTrans-Pacific Partnership (currently called the P4), Trade Minister PhilGoff said today.
The negotiations were announced in New York on 22 September, following ameeting between Mr Goff, United States Trade Representative Susan Schwaband trade ministers from Singapore, Chile and Brunei (the other P4countries)."The US is the world's largest economy, with more than 270 millionconsumers with a very high average income, notwithstanding recenteconomic difficulties," Phil Goff said."It is New Zealand's second largest export market. Total trade with theUS in the year to June 2008 was worth $8.14 billion, accounting for 9.6per cent of New Zealand's overall total trade. That means this deal isof huge significance to New Zealand.
"An American study on the impact of an FTA with the US, the BergstenReport, published in 2002, estimates that New Zealand exports to the USwould rise by $1 billion."That figure is indicative only. With its membership likely to expandfurther, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will likely bring much greaterbenefit for New Zealand and the US. The strategic benefits to the US should win bipartisan support for the agreement and ensure that it isboth high quality and comprehensive in nature."
In the current world economic climate, improving market access for Kiwiexporters, and the boost to growth, jobs and confidence that thisprovides, makes this negotiation and proposed agreement criticallyimportant."The more favourable New Zealand exchange rate will also boost exporterconfidence. New Zealand's export future however, relies not on cheapnessbut on quality and innovation."Essential to this is the encouragement of research and developmentpromoted by both Labour's 15 per cent tax credit for R and D and the$700 million Fast Forward Fund for the primary sector."National's promise to eliminate these policies is incomprehensible,"Phil Goff said.
"Our major exports to the US, dairy and meat, will benefit significantlythrough the removal of export quotas."Horticultural exports to the US worth $370 million last year currentlyface tariffs of up to 23 per cent. They will also be significantbeneficiaries."Fish and seafood, industrial products, metal products, wood, pulp andpaper account for more than $1.5 billion in New Zealand exports to theUS.These too will be able to trade into the US at lower cost."New Zealand companies will also be able to bid for US Governmentprocurement contracts, worth an estimated $200 billion a year."One example of facilitating new opportunities for New Zealand exportersis in the US Territory of Guam, where US Marines are transferring tofrom Okinawa over the next five years. This involves contracts of around$14 billion for work such as building and support services around thenew base.
An FTA with the US could allow New Zealand companies to bid directly forDefense Department projects."Our high tech companies will also benefit. Christchurch-based TaitElectronics last week welcomed the advantages an FTA with the US wouldbring, allowing them to bid for US Government contracts, currentlyblocked under the Buy American Act."Tait said this would greatly reduce the time and effort taken to meetUS regulations to export its radio equipment into the US. It would alsoallow it to bring its manufacturing base back from Texas to NewZealand," Phil Goff said."Public submissions are an essential part of a consultation process thatwill take place as the negotiations proceed.
The negotiations are due tobegin in March 2009, and are expected to be completed within 12 to 24months," Phil Goff said.Background to the negotiations and an online submission form areavailable on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Website,mfat.govt.nz.
(Submissions close on December 8)
Press Release by New Zealand Government at 3:13 pm, 15 Oct 2008
The Government is inviting submissions on New Zealand's upcoming FreeTrade Agreement negotiations with the United States as part of theTrans-Pacific Partnership (currently called the P4), Trade Minister PhilGoff said today.
The negotiations were announced in New York on 22 September, following ameeting between Mr Goff, United States Trade Representative Susan Schwaband trade ministers from Singapore, Chile and Brunei (the other P4countries)."The US is the world's largest economy, with more than 270 millionconsumers with a very high average income, notwithstanding recenteconomic difficulties," Phil Goff said."It is New Zealand's second largest export market. Total trade with theUS in the year to June 2008 was worth $8.14 billion, accounting for 9.6per cent of New Zealand's overall total trade. That means this deal isof huge significance to New Zealand.
"An American study on the impact of an FTA with the US, the BergstenReport, published in 2002, estimates that New Zealand exports to the USwould rise by $1 billion."That figure is indicative only. With its membership likely to expandfurther, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will likely bring much greaterbenefit for New Zealand and the US. The strategic benefits to the US should win bipartisan support for the agreement and ensure that it isboth high quality and comprehensive in nature."
In the current world economic climate, improving market access for Kiwiexporters, and the boost to growth, jobs and confidence that thisprovides, makes this negotiation and proposed agreement criticallyimportant."The more favourable New Zealand exchange rate will also boost exporterconfidence. New Zealand's export future however, relies not on cheapnessbut on quality and innovation."Essential to this is the encouragement of research and developmentpromoted by both Labour's 15 per cent tax credit for R and D and the$700 million Fast Forward Fund for the primary sector."National's promise to eliminate these policies is incomprehensible,"Phil Goff said.
"Our major exports to the US, dairy and meat, will benefit significantlythrough the removal of export quotas."Horticultural exports to the US worth $370 million last year currentlyface tariffs of up to 23 per cent. They will also be significantbeneficiaries."Fish and seafood, industrial products, metal products, wood, pulp andpaper account for more than $1.5 billion in New Zealand exports to theUS.These too will be able to trade into the US at lower cost."New Zealand companies will also be able to bid for US Governmentprocurement contracts, worth an estimated $200 billion a year."One example of facilitating new opportunities for New Zealand exportersis in the US Territory of Guam, where US Marines are transferring tofrom Okinawa over the next five years. This involves contracts of around$14 billion for work such as building and support services around thenew base.
An FTA with the US could allow New Zealand companies to bid directly forDefense Department projects."Our high tech companies will also benefit. Christchurch-based TaitElectronics last week welcomed the advantages an FTA with the US wouldbring, allowing them to bid for US Government contracts, currentlyblocked under the Buy American Act."Tait said this would greatly reduce the time and effort taken to meetUS regulations to export its radio equipment into the US. It would alsoallow it to bring its manufacturing base back from Texas to NewZealand," Phil Goff said."Public submissions are an essential part of a consultation process thatwill take place as the negotiations proceed.
The negotiations are due tobegin in March 2009, and are expected to be completed within 12 to 24months," Phil Goff said.Background to the negotiations and an online submission form areavailable on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Website,mfat.govt.nz.
CAFCA Press Release
HELEN. DON’T JUST STOP AT SAVING ST JAMES STATION FROM FOREIGN OWNERSHIP
The Campaign Against Foreign of Aotearoa (CAFCA) congratulates the Government for buying the St James Station for the explicit purpose of keeping it from falling into foreign ownership.
This proves that its 2005 Overseas Investment Act is not working. At the time that was touted as affording protection to “iconic” land. The Government obviously doesn’t trust its own law to do that when it opted to spend $40 million to buy St James. In fact, all that Act does is put up a few more hoops for foreign buyers to jump through but it doesn’t actually stop them buying land, iconic or otherwise.
There is a simpler, and much cheaper, solution than ad hoc multi-million dollar purchases to prevent NZ land being sold overseas – institute a legal regime that much more severely restricts foreign ownership of land, or ban it outright. That is the logical conclusion of what the Government has done in the case of St James Station and we call upon it to admit that and put such a regime in place as soon as possible.
The Campaign Against Foreign of Aotearoa (CAFCA) congratulates the Government for buying the St James Station for the explicit purpose of keeping it from falling into foreign ownership.
This proves that its 2005 Overseas Investment Act is not working. At the time that was touted as affording protection to “iconic” land. The Government obviously doesn’t trust its own law to do that when it opted to spend $40 million to buy St James. In fact, all that Act does is put up a few more hoops for foreign buyers to jump through but it doesn’t actually stop them buying land, iconic or otherwise.
There is a simpler, and much cheaper, solution than ad hoc multi-million dollar purchases to prevent NZ land being sold overseas – institute a legal regime that much more severely restricts foreign ownership of land, or ban it outright. That is the logical conclusion of what the Government has done in the case of St James Station and we call upon it to admit that and put such a regime in place as soon as possible.
US Free Trade Agreement - CAFCA Press Release
US FREE TRADE AGREEMENT A POISONED CHALICE FOR NZ
The proposed expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (NZ, Chile, Brunei, and Singapore, commonly known as the P4 Agreement) to include investment and financial services, and to add the US to its membership, was bad enough.
For a succinct, detailed critique of that original proposal, go to http://nznotforsale.wordpress.com/danger-ahead/ on the New Zealand Not For Sale Website.
But for this to suddenly morph into a fullblown Free Trade Agreement with the US is catastrophic for any remaining economic sovereignty that New Zealand has. We say this not because we are “anti-American”. All such FTAs – such as with China, or the existing P4 partners, for instance - pose the same threat to a greater or lesser degree. And our opposition to them is not because of “xenophobia” but for well founded grounds that they simply enmesh NZ more and more tightly in a cobweb of transnational corporate control.
So it’s a recipe for disaster to enter into an FTA with the biggest economy in the world, headed by a Government that aggressively pushes the interests of American Big Business (there is a seamless flow between the US Government and US Big Business, as is evidenced by the current trillion dollar bailout of the mega-greedy financial sector, a textbook example of socialism for the rich).
A full blown US FTA will:
Remove any remaining “restrictions” on foreign investment, as the US regards NZ’s (purely token) oversight regime as “discriminating” against US transnational corporations
push up the price of medicines by potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year by attacking Pharmac;
make access to digital recordings more expensive, and copying more restricted;
attack our GE controls and food labelling,
weaken our controls on food imports where they might carry diseases.
Both Labour and National myopically see a US FTA as being the Holy Grail of their adherence to the cargo cult of “free trade”. It’s actually a poisoned chalice and it will be New Zealand which will be poisoned by it.
The proposed expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (NZ, Chile, Brunei, and Singapore, commonly known as the P4 Agreement) to include investment and financial services, and to add the US to its membership, was bad enough.
For a succinct, detailed critique of that original proposal, go to http://nznotforsale.wordpress.com/danger-ahead/ on the New Zealand Not For Sale Website.
But for this to suddenly morph into a fullblown Free Trade Agreement with the US is catastrophic for any remaining economic sovereignty that New Zealand has. We say this not because we are “anti-American”. All such FTAs – such as with China, or the existing P4 partners, for instance - pose the same threat to a greater or lesser degree. And our opposition to them is not because of “xenophobia” but for well founded grounds that they simply enmesh NZ more and more tightly in a cobweb of transnational corporate control.
So it’s a recipe for disaster to enter into an FTA with the biggest economy in the world, headed by a Government that aggressively pushes the interests of American Big Business (there is a seamless flow between the US Government and US Big Business, as is evidenced by the current trillion dollar bailout of the mega-greedy financial sector, a textbook example of socialism for the rich).
A full blown US FTA will:
Remove any remaining “restrictions” on foreign investment, as the US regards NZ’s (purely token) oversight regime as “discriminating” against US transnational corporations
push up the price of medicines by potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year by attacking Pharmac;
make access to digital recordings more expensive, and copying more restricted;
attack our GE controls and food labelling,
weaken our controls on food imports where they might carry diseases.
Both Labour and National myopically see a US FTA as being the Holy Grail of their adherence to the cargo cult of “free trade”. It’s actually a poisoned chalice and it will be New Zealand which will be poisoned by it.
More on the Spybase
Waihopai spybase - it's not all bad
The spy base at Waihopai has certainly generated its fair share of controversy over the years. About 30km outside Blenheim on the Waihopai Valley Road, the base, with its two white globes, has stood in the Waihopai Valley since 1989, writes The Marlborough Express in an editorial.
The Waihopai spy base is operated by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau. Exactly what goes on at the base is not 100 percent clear but its two satellite interception dishes (shielded from public view by giant domes) are said to intercept a huge volume of telexes, faxes, emails and computer data communications. Opponents of the base believe it is part of Echelon, the worldwide network of signals interception facilities run by the American and British intelligence agencies.
They do not want New Zealand to be part of Uncle Sam's spy network, and were particularly fired up by revelations found in former prime minister David Lange's papers that this country spied on friendly countries in the 1980s.
Anti-base campaigners say the base's existence makes New Zealand complicit in America's wars. Some say it is the key contribution New Zealand makes to any American war anywhere in the world, and leaves New Zealand with blood on its hands. It also places an unreasonable burden on New Zealand taxpayers, who have paid about half a billion dollars in the last 20 years.
The spy base has been the site of protests over many years. Every year it is the venue for an annual protest that sees a group of protesters stand around outside its gates with placards, yelling slogans and generally just expressing their displeasure at the base.
The base attracted international attention on April 30 when three sickle-wielding protesters broke on to the site and deflated one of the large inflatable domes covering a radar dish. The men were members of Ploughshares, a London-based movement which delivers its disarmament message by attempting to disable warplanes and other military equipment.
The group describes itself as "people committed to peace and disarmament and who nonviolently, safely, openly and accountably disable a war machine or system so that it can no longer harm people". Whether the Waihopai spy base can truly be called a "war machine" or whether it really "harms people" is debatable.
The Waihopai Satellite Communications Station is part of a signals intelligence alliance between New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It plays a vital role for New Zealand in being a part of that international network, which directly benefits New Zealand. Experience over the past few years shows that it is better to be forewarned than forearmed. Intelligence gathering plays a significant role in tracking extremists and has been proved worthwhile internationally.
The spy base employs local people, it does not emit any poisonous gases or spill pollutants into the soil or rivers. If it were not for the annual protests most people would not really give a hoot about it. There are valid concerns that privacy could be invaded by the base's interception of communications. But if that interception of communications was responsible for saving a life then having two oversized golf balls in our backyard is a small price to pay.
The spy base at Waihopai has certainly generated its fair share of controversy over the years. About 30km outside Blenheim on the Waihopai Valley Road, the base, with its two white globes, has stood in the Waihopai Valley since 1989, writes The Marlborough Express in an editorial.
The Waihopai spy base is operated by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau. Exactly what goes on at the base is not 100 percent clear but its two satellite interception dishes (shielded from public view by giant domes) are said to intercept a huge volume of telexes, faxes, emails and computer data communications. Opponents of the base believe it is part of Echelon, the worldwide network of signals interception facilities run by the American and British intelligence agencies.
They do not want New Zealand to be part of Uncle Sam's spy network, and were particularly fired up by revelations found in former prime minister David Lange's papers that this country spied on friendly countries in the 1980s.
Anti-base campaigners say the base's existence makes New Zealand complicit in America's wars. Some say it is the key contribution New Zealand makes to any American war anywhere in the world, and leaves New Zealand with blood on its hands. It also places an unreasonable burden on New Zealand taxpayers, who have paid about half a billion dollars in the last 20 years.
The spy base has been the site of protests over many years. Every year it is the venue for an annual protest that sees a group of protesters stand around outside its gates with placards, yelling slogans and generally just expressing their displeasure at the base.
The base attracted international attention on April 30 when three sickle-wielding protesters broke on to the site and deflated one of the large inflatable domes covering a radar dish. The men were members of Ploughshares, a London-based movement which delivers its disarmament message by attempting to disable warplanes and other military equipment.
The group describes itself as "people committed to peace and disarmament and who nonviolently, safely, openly and accountably disable a war machine or system so that it can no longer harm people". Whether the Waihopai spy base can truly be called a "war machine" or whether it really "harms people" is debatable.
The Waihopai Satellite Communications Station is part of a signals intelligence alliance between New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It plays a vital role for New Zealand in being a part of that international network, which directly benefits New Zealand. Experience over the past few years shows that it is better to be forewarned than forearmed. Intelligence gathering plays a significant role in tracking extremists and has been proved worthwhile internationally.
The spy base employs local people, it does not emit any poisonous gases or spill pollutants into the soil or rivers. If it were not for the annual protests most people would not really give a hoot about it. There are valid concerns that privacy could be invaded by the base's interception of communications. But if that interception of communications was responsible for saving a life then having two oversized golf balls in our backyard is a small price to pay.
Domebuster in The Press
`Waihopai 3' to face court after attack on spy base
The year 1980 was pivotal for American peace activist Philip Berrigan.
He was no stranger to controversy. Thirteen years before, he was the first Catholic priest in the United States to serve time for civil disobedience six months in jail for a graphic protest against the Vietnam war. He and three others had saturated military service papers with their own blood.
In September 1980, Berrigan's beliefs were undiminished.
With seven others, he entered a factory in Pennsylvania that made cones for nuclear warheads. They attacked the cones with hammers, then poured their blood on official documents before offering prayers for peace.
Their anti-war protest was the first carried out in the name of Ploughshares.
The word is from the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament.
Looking into a distant, peaceful future Isaiah said: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift sword against nation; and there shall be no more training for war."
Berrigan and his associates were charged and imprisoned. They never denied what they had done, but tried to use the biblical reference as justification.
A ploughshare is the cutting edge of a plough. In essence, they were calling for the tools of war to be turned into the tools of peaceful productivity. Isaiah's vision was to be fulfilled not buried in the scriptures.
Since 1980, there have been up to 100 similar Ploughshares' protests around the world.
On January 1, 1991, mainstream New Zealand was introduced to Ploughshares.
In the lead-up to Washington's first war with Iraq, an unknown 22-year-old from Christchurch made headlines when she was arrested in the United States.
Moana Coles and three others had cut their way into the Griffiss military base in New York, hammered on aircraft and the runway, poured blood and spray-painted anti-war slogans.
They were the first to put the acronym ANZUS in front of the Ploughshares name, saying they wanted to create "a new pact for peace".
Coles spent time in jail and eventually was deported.
Now, back in Christchurch, she stands by the action.
"I would argue that our analysis wasn't wrong. The infrastructure of Iraq was destroyed, 50,000 kids died in the bombing of Iraq in 1991, and a further couple of hundred thousand children under the age of five have died since because of the sanctions.
"So this was a war that broke international law, and we would say that as Christians we had an obligation to put our bodies in between those weapons and those who were going to be killed by them. And we have no choice about that if we are serious about our faith."
Silence and inaction are complicity in Coles's eyes.
At least one of the Waihopai Three 68-year-old Peter Murnane from Auckland, himself a Catholic priest supports the notion.
He believes the scripture does imply a duty. "The more I read about Iraq, the awfulness and the size of the crime, the first Iraqi war in 1991, and then the 12 years of sanctions or more, and then the second war, were designed to destroy that country. And any little thing I can say against those who do it, or the weaponry or the intelligence network that is combining to enable those things, anything I can do, I'll do."
Not all Ploughshares activists are religious, but it is Catholics, more than any other Christians, with whom the movement is most closely associated. Within the Catholic Church though, few openly support its activities.
Christchurch's most senior Roman Catholic, Bishop Barry Jones, told The Press not many would condone the wilful destruction of property. "I think they are misguided in the sense that they go too far. You could make a symbolic protest and it could be very effective without breaking any laws at all.
"And lots of people have done that through history. I did it when the Springbok tour was on, and I didn't break any law, and I protested like mad." In some Ploughshares' cases courts have taken a liberal view.
In July 2006, an Irish jury acquitted a group of criminal damage to property. Five activists had broken into Shannon Airport in County Clare, beating on an American supply plane with hammers and pouring their own blood over it.
The airport's use as a "pitstop" for American troops in Iraq was largely unknown in Ireland and the five used the case to highlight what they viewed as complicity in the war machine.
They argued their protest was necessary to prevent worse crimes.
The jury essentially agreed that in the circumstances damaging the plane could not be considered a crime.
However, the April, 2008, action against the Waihopai spy dome may be more complicated. For one thing, it was against an intelligence installation, not a weapon of war. Moana Cole, now also a lawyer and Sam Land's legal representative, accepted that this particular case was different.
"It is quite an unusual Ploughshares' action, and up until now, for those groups who have identified themselves with Ploughshares activists, it's always been against a weapon or a weapons' system," she said.
"What one has to do then is try to explain quite carefully the role of intelligence in modern warfare, which has had increasing prominence in the modern age ... and particularly since 1991 where intelligence bases play a strong part in military alliances."
The Waihopai Three will have to convince the court the moral argument is relevant.
They are charged with causing intentional damage and entering a building with the intent to commit a crime.
Bishop Barry Jones said it was about contravention of a just law. For him, breaking a law to liberate someone from torture was one thing, political protest another.
"The greatest contribution that citizens can make to peace in society is to observe the rule of law. Otherwise, instead of having a peaceful and harmonious and secure society, we have a shambles," he said. "If everyone is free to go around and break the law because they have noble instincts, life is going to be very tricky."
Father Peter Murnane will not be convinced. "We didn't bomb anything, we didn't blow up a family," he said. "In a minor way to break a law, to damage a bit of property is trivial in comparison. Is he (Jones) concerned about the destruction of people, of generations of human beings? It is a matter of proportion. No law is sacrosanct in that sense, no property is sacrosanct."
Peter Murnane, Sam Land and Adrian Leason will appear in the Blenheim District Court for a depositions hearing on Thursday.
The year 1980 was pivotal for American peace activist Philip Berrigan.
He was no stranger to controversy. Thirteen years before, he was the first Catholic priest in the United States to serve time for civil disobedience six months in jail for a graphic protest against the Vietnam war. He and three others had saturated military service papers with their own blood.
In September 1980, Berrigan's beliefs were undiminished.
With seven others, he entered a factory in Pennsylvania that made cones for nuclear warheads. They attacked the cones with hammers, then poured their blood on official documents before offering prayers for peace.
Their anti-war protest was the first carried out in the name of Ploughshares.
The word is from the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament.
Looking into a distant, peaceful future Isaiah said: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift sword against nation; and there shall be no more training for war."
Berrigan and his associates were charged and imprisoned. They never denied what they had done, but tried to use the biblical reference as justification.
A ploughshare is the cutting edge of a plough. In essence, they were calling for the tools of war to be turned into the tools of peaceful productivity. Isaiah's vision was to be fulfilled not buried in the scriptures.
Since 1980, there have been up to 100 similar Ploughshares' protests around the world.
On January 1, 1991, mainstream New Zealand was introduced to Ploughshares.
In the lead-up to Washington's first war with Iraq, an unknown 22-year-old from Christchurch made headlines when she was arrested in the United States.
Moana Coles and three others had cut their way into the Griffiss military base in New York, hammered on aircraft and the runway, poured blood and spray-painted anti-war slogans.
They were the first to put the acronym ANZUS in front of the Ploughshares name, saying they wanted to create "a new pact for peace".
Coles spent time in jail and eventually was deported.
Now, back in Christchurch, she stands by the action.
"I would argue that our analysis wasn't wrong. The infrastructure of Iraq was destroyed, 50,000 kids died in the bombing of Iraq in 1991, and a further couple of hundred thousand children under the age of five have died since because of the sanctions.
"So this was a war that broke international law, and we would say that as Christians we had an obligation to put our bodies in between those weapons and those who were going to be killed by them. And we have no choice about that if we are serious about our faith."
Silence and inaction are complicity in Coles's eyes.
At least one of the Waihopai Three 68-year-old Peter Murnane from Auckland, himself a Catholic priest supports the notion.
He believes the scripture does imply a duty. "The more I read about Iraq, the awfulness and the size of the crime, the first Iraqi war in 1991, and then the 12 years of sanctions or more, and then the second war, were designed to destroy that country. And any little thing I can say against those who do it, or the weaponry or the intelligence network that is combining to enable those things, anything I can do, I'll do."
Not all Ploughshares activists are religious, but it is Catholics, more than any other Christians, with whom the movement is most closely associated. Within the Catholic Church though, few openly support its activities.
Christchurch's most senior Roman Catholic, Bishop Barry Jones, told The Press not many would condone the wilful destruction of property. "I think they are misguided in the sense that they go too far. You could make a symbolic protest and it could be very effective without breaking any laws at all.
"And lots of people have done that through history. I did it when the Springbok tour was on, and I didn't break any law, and I protested like mad." In some Ploughshares' cases courts have taken a liberal view.
In July 2006, an Irish jury acquitted a group of criminal damage to property. Five activists had broken into Shannon Airport in County Clare, beating on an American supply plane with hammers and pouring their own blood over it.
The airport's use as a "pitstop" for American troops in Iraq was largely unknown in Ireland and the five used the case to highlight what they viewed as complicity in the war machine.
They argued their protest was necessary to prevent worse crimes.
The jury essentially agreed that in the circumstances damaging the plane could not be considered a crime.
However, the April, 2008, action against the Waihopai spy dome may be more complicated. For one thing, it was against an intelligence installation, not a weapon of war. Moana Cole, now also a lawyer and Sam Land's legal representative, accepted that this particular case was different.
"It is quite an unusual Ploughshares' action, and up until now, for those groups who have identified themselves with Ploughshares activists, it's always been against a weapon or a weapons' system," she said.
"What one has to do then is try to explain quite carefully the role of intelligence in modern warfare, which has had increasing prominence in the modern age ... and particularly since 1991 where intelligence bases play a strong part in military alliances."
The Waihopai Three will have to convince the court the moral argument is relevant.
They are charged with causing intentional damage and entering a building with the intent to commit a crime.
Bishop Barry Jones said it was about contravention of a just law. For him, breaking a law to liberate someone from torture was one thing, political protest another.
"The greatest contribution that citizens can make to peace in society is to observe the rule of law. Otherwise, instead of having a peaceful and harmonious and secure society, we have a shambles," he said. "If everyone is free to go around and break the law because they have noble instincts, life is going to be very tricky."
Father Peter Murnane will not be convinced. "We didn't bomb anything, we didn't blow up a family," he said. "In a minor way to break a law, to damage a bit of property is trivial in comparison. Is he (Jones) concerned about the destruction of people, of generations of human beings? It is a matter of proportion. No law is sacrosanct in that sense, no property is sacrosanct."
Peter Murnane, Sam Land and Adrian Leason will appear in the Blenheim District Court for a depositions hearing on Thursday.
Deposition Hearing for the Waihopai Domebusters
Support Waihopai Ploughshares
17-18 September 2008
This page has the details of how you can support Waihopai Ploughshares around their depositions hearing which will be held at Blenheim District Court on Thursday, 18 September. There are four sections below: what's happening in Blenheim on 17 and 18 September, supporting events in Wellington and Auckland on 18 September, and other ways you can support Ploughshares.
"On 30 April, Christian activists Sam, Peter and Adi deflated the protective dome covering a satellite dish at the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim. This Christian non-violent direct action was to protest against NZ's involvement in America's war in Iraq. On the 18th of September, they will be in court for their depositions hearing where they will enter a plea in relation to the two criminal charges they are facing. Your prayers and support are appreciated."
Blenheim, 17 and 18 September
On Wednesday, 17 September
* 6pm - evening meal at St Mary's Presbytery, 61 Maxwell Road
* 7.30pm - 'Swords into ploughshares: defence bases and idolatry' discussion forum, Saint Mary's Church foyer. Overnight accommodation at St Mary's Parish Hall (mattresses only provided)
On Thursday, 18 September
* 10am - depositions hearing, Courtroom No 1, Blenheim District Court, 58 Alfred Street
* 1pm to 2pm - sausage sizzle and cake stall to raise money for the reconstruction of Iraq (target:USD$800,000,000,000) at the Blenheim War Memorial, opposite the court house.
A printable poster with the Blenheim events is available here, for more information contact Adi, tel 06 364 8966 or email.
Wellington, Thursday 18 September
From 1pm to 2.30pm - peaceful presence at the GCSB HQ, Freyberg Building, corner Aitken Street and Mulgrave Street (opposite Archives NZ), with music, and more! All welcome, come along and support Ploughshares non-violent / faith-based kaupapa; for more information contact the Wellington Ploughshares Support Group.
Auckland, Thursday 18 September
From 12.30pm to 2pm - peaceful presence outside the US Consulate, Citibank Building, 23 Customs Street East (corner of Commerce Street). All welcome! come along and support Ploughshares non-violent / faith-based kaupapa, for more information contact the Auckland Ploughshares Support Group.
Other ways you can support Ploughshares
Prayer, advocacy and money are all important ways that supporters can participate in the witness of Ploughshares. Ploughshares support information - including a request for prayers / karakia, how to post messages of support or join the Ploughshares mailing list, and suggestions for questions you can ask the Prime Minister about Waihopai - are available on the Ploughshares web site or by email.
Help get the message out - print and distribute this flyer.
If you can help with financial support, donations can be made * by bank transfer: WestPac, Account Name: Te Wairua Maranga Trust, Account Number: 03-1703-0036346-04 - donations are not tax-deductible * by cheque: please send your cheque payable to 'Peace Movement Aotearoa - Special Projects', with a note saying it is for Waihopai Ploughshares, and your name and address (if you'd like a receipt) to Peace Movement Aotearoa, PO Box 9314, Wellington 6141. Thank you
17-18 September 2008
This page has the details of how you can support Waihopai Ploughshares around their depositions hearing which will be held at Blenheim District Court on Thursday, 18 September. There are four sections below: what's happening in Blenheim on 17 and 18 September, supporting events in Wellington and Auckland on 18 September, and other ways you can support Ploughshares.
"On 30 April, Christian activists Sam, Peter and Adi deflated the protective dome covering a satellite dish at the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim. This Christian non-violent direct action was to protest against NZ's involvement in America's war in Iraq. On the 18th of September, they will be in court for their depositions hearing where they will enter a plea in relation to the two criminal charges they are facing. Your prayers and support are appreciated."
Blenheim, 17 and 18 September
On Wednesday, 17 September
* 6pm - evening meal at St Mary's Presbytery, 61 Maxwell Road
* 7.30pm - 'Swords into ploughshares: defence bases and idolatry' discussion forum, Saint Mary's Church foyer. Overnight accommodation at St Mary's Parish Hall (mattresses only provided)
On Thursday, 18 September
* 10am - depositions hearing, Courtroom No 1, Blenheim District Court, 58 Alfred Street
* 1pm to 2pm - sausage sizzle and cake stall to raise money for the reconstruction of Iraq (target:USD$800,000,000,000) at the Blenheim War Memorial, opposite the court house.
A printable poster with the Blenheim events is available here, for more information contact Adi, tel 06 364 8966 or email.
Wellington, Thursday 18 September
From 1pm to 2.30pm - peaceful presence at the GCSB HQ, Freyberg Building, corner Aitken Street and Mulgrave Street (opposite Archives NZ), with music, and more! All welcome, come along and support Ploughshares non-violent / faith-based kaupapa; for more information contact the Wellington Ploughshares Support Group.
Auckland, Thursday 18 September
From 12.30pm to 2pm - peaceful presence outside the US Consulate, Citibank Building, 23 Customs Street East (corner of Commerce Street). All welcome! come along and support Ploughshares non-violent / faith-based kaupapa, for more information contact the Auckland Ploughshares Support Group.
Other ways you can support Ploughshares
Prayer, advocacy and money are all important ways that supporters can participate in the witness of Ploughshares. Ploughshares support information - including a request for prayers / karakia, how to post messages of support or join the Ploughshares mailing list, and suggestions for questions you can ask the Prime Minister about Waihopai - are available on the Ploughshares web site or by email.
Help get the message out - print and distribute this flyer.
If you can help with financial support, donations can be made * by bank transfer: WestPac, Account Name: Te Wairua Maranga Trust, Account Number: 03-1703-0036346-04 - donations are not tax-deductible * by cheque: please send your cheque payable to 'Peace Movement Aotearoa - Special Projects', with a note saying it is for Waihopai Ploughshares, and your name and address (if you'd like a receipt) to Peace Movement Aotearoa, PO Box 9314, Wellington 6141. Thank you
Peace Researcher August 08 Online
Pop Goes The Spybase! Waihopai Domebusters Severely Embarrass The Covert State – by Murray Horton
Waihopai Protest 08 – by Murray Horton
Pine Gap Spybase “Invaders” Acquitted: Huge Defeat For The Covert State – by Murray Horton
In The Dragon’s Lair – by Herbert Docena
West Papua: Have We Forgotten The Lessons Of East Timor? – by Maire Leadbeater
Reviews by Bob Leonard & Jeremy Agar
“America In Peril”, by Bob Aldridge
“The Three Trillion Dollar War” by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
“Against Freedom: The War On Terrorism In Everyday New Zealand Life” by Valerie Morse
“Unconventional Warfare” A DVD
“The Peace Movement In Christchurch 1937-41, 1946-47: A Memoir”, by Will Foote
Obituaries by Murray Horton
Philip Agee
Reg Duder
Waihopai Protest 08 – by Murray Horton
Pine Gap Spybase “Invaders” Acquitted: Huge Defeat For The Covert State – by Murray Horton
In The Dragon’s Lair – by Herbert Docena
West Papua: Have We Forgotten The Lessons Of East Timor? – by Maire Leadbeater
Reviews by Bob Leonard & Jeremy Agar
“America In Peril”, by Bob Aldridge
“The Three Trillion Dollar War” by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
“Against Freedom: The War On Terrorism In Everyday New Zealand Life” by Valerie Morse
“Unconventional Warfare” A DVD
“The Peace Movement In Christchurch 1937-41, 1946-47: A Memoir”, by Will Foote
Obituaries by Murray Horton
Philip Agee
Reg Duder
August 08 Watchdog
Foreign Control Watchdog 118
August 2008
Sharks In The Water: Privatisation Rears Its Ugly Head Again, by Murray Horton
Danger Ahead! Back Door US Deal Threatens All Remaining Foreign Investment Rules, by Bill Rosenberg
Round And Round The Mulberry Bush: Auckland Airport And Treasury Advice, by Quentin Findlay
Where National’s Social Service Policy Will Go: A Super Contractor To Control Social Services, by Tim Howard
A Decade Of Rogering: It’s A Tough Job But Somebody Has To Do It, by Murray Horton
Global Food Crisis And Free Trade Disaster, by Dennis Small
Pop Goes The Spybase! Waihopai Domebusters Severely Embarrass The Covert State, by Murray Horton
Reviews, by Jeremy Agar“The Hollow Men”; A Film By Alister Barry“Arsenal of Hypocrisy”; A Film By Randy Atkins“The Three Trillion Dollar War”; by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
Obituaries by Murray Horton Morry GardnerDon McNivenMick RobertsonTrever WrightMartin LawrenceDeath In The Family: Aileen Finucane
The Campaign To Stop Electricity Privatisation In NSW, by Denis Doherty
Non-Members: It takes a lot of work to compile and write the material presented on these pages - if you value the information, please send a donation to help us continue the work.
The material on this site may be reproduced provided the source is acknowledged. Published by Foreign Control Watchdog Inc, Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand.
email cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
Note that the regular analysis of the decisions of the Overseas Investment Office, which are published in every Foreign Control Watchdog are not republished here because they are available on the web site of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA).
August 2008
Sharks In The Water: Privatisation Rears Its Ugly Head Again, by Murray Horton
Danger Ahead! Back Door US Deal Threatens All Remaining Foreign Investment Rules, by Bill Rosenberg
Round And Round The Mulberry Bush: Auckland Airport And Treasury Advice, by Quentin Findlay
Where National’s Social Service Policy Will Go: A Super Contractor To Control Social Services, by Tim Howard
A Decade Of Rogering: It’s A Tough Job But Somebody Has To Do It, by Murray Horton
Global Food Crisis And Free Trade Disaster, by Dennis Small
Pop Goes The Spybase! Waihopai Domebusters Severely Embarrass The Covert State, by Murray Horton
Reviews, by Jeremy Agar“The Hollow Men”; A Film By Alister Barry“Arsenal of Hypocrisy”; A Film By Randy Atkins“The Three Trillion Dollar War”; by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
Obituaries by Murray Horton Morry GardnerDon McNivenMick RobertsonTrever WrightMartin LawrenceDeath In The Family: Aileen Finucane
The Campaign To Stop Electricity Privatisation In NSW, by Denis Doherty
Non-Members: It takes a lot of work to compile and write the material presented on these pages - if you value the information, please send a donation to help us continue the work.
The material on this site may be reproduced provided the source is acknowledged. Published by Foreign Control Watchdog Inc, Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand.
email cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
Note that the regular analysis of the decisions of the Overseas Investment Office, which are published in every Foreign Control Watchdog are not republished here because they are available on the web site of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA).
New York Times article about New Zealand and Nuclear
Let’s Hear It for New Zealand
Published: August 31, 2008
If you are feeling anxious — and you should be — about the world’s appetite for nuclear weapons, there is a bit of good news. More countries than we ever expected are refusing to be pressured by the United States and India to approve an ill-conceived nuclear deal.
For 30 years, ever since India used its civilian nuclear program to produce a bomb, the world has been banned from selling nuclear technology to India. Three years ago, President Bush agreed, with far too few conditions, to break that ban and sell India reactors and fuel.
The White House argued that India is an important democracy and shrugged off critics who said that breaking the rules would make it even harder to pressure Iran and others to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
The administration — and India’s high-paid lobbyists — managed to persuade Congress to give preliminary approval to the deal. But before it can go forward, the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (which sets rules for nuclear trade) must also agree.
At a meeting this month, more than 20 governments delayed approval, raising serious questions and insisting on sound conditions. They insisted that there can be no sale to India of technology to make more nuclear fuel — usable for a reactor or a bomb — and that suppliers halt all trade if India tests another weapon. And they insisted that India accept the most rigorous possible international monitoring of its civilian nuclear facilities.
We hope this admirable band — led by New Zealand, Ireland, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland — continues to stand firm when the nuclear group meets again this week.
Mr. Bush and his team were so eager for a foreign policy success that they gave away the store. They extracted no promise from India to stop producing bomb-making material. No promise not to expand its arsenal. And no promise not to resume nuclear testing.
When Congress gave its approval it wrote in the many of the same conditions that New Zealand and others are insisting on. That has not stopped the administration from insisting on more generosity from the suppliers group. If it gets its way, India could end up buying technology from Russia, France and other less exacting sellers while bypassing the United States. Add that to the list of what is deeply wrong with this deal.
Published: August 31, 2008
If you are feeling anxious — and you should be — about the world’s appetite for nuclear weapons, there is a bit of good news. More countries than we ever expected are refusing to be pressured by the United States and India to approve an ill-conceived nuclear deal.
For 30 years, ever since India used its civilian nuclear program to produce a bomb, the world has been banned from selling nuclear technology to India. Three years ago, President Bush agreed, with far too few conditions, to break that ban and sell India reactors and fuel.
The White House argued that India is an important democracy and shrugged off critics who said that breaking the rules would make it even harder to pressure Iran and others to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
The administration — and India’s high-paid lobbyists — managed to persuade Congress to give preliminary approval to the deal. But before it can go forward, the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (which sets rules for nuclear trade) must also agree.
At a meeting this month, more than 20 governments delayed approval, raising serious questions and insisting on sound conditions. They insisted that there can be no sale to India of technology to make more nuclear fuel — usable for a reactor or a bomb — and that suppliers halt all trade if India tests another weapon. And they insisted that India accept the most rigorous possible international monitoring of its civilian nuclear facilities.
We hope this admirable band — led by New Zealand, Ireland, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland — continues to stand firm when the nuclear group meets again this week.
Mr. Bush and his team were so eager for a foreign policy success that they gave away the store. They extracted no promise from India to stop producing bomb-making material. No promise not to expand its arsenal. And no promise not to resume nuclear testing.
When Congress gave its approval it wrote in the many of the same conditions that New Zealand and others are insisting on. That has not stopped the administration from insisting on more generosity from the suppliers group. If it gets its way, India could end up buying technology from Russia, France and other less exacting sellers while bypassing the United States. Add that to the list of what is deeply wrong with this deal.
North and South Article on Rio Tinto
Smelter
The Power of One
As the country emerges from another winter with threatened power blackouts, Mike White investigates why one factory, the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter, is allowed to swallow nearly 15 per cent of the country’s precious electricity and asks whether it’s time they shut up.
He wore a serious suit and a whiff of hair product. She wore black, and the rimless glasses of generations of librarians.
Paul Hemburrow and Xiaoling Liu had come to Parliament’s finance select committee with dark dress and a grave message from their employer, aluminium colossus Rio Tinto Alcan (formerly Comalco): Carry on with your climate change legislation and we’ll have to close our aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point near Bluff.
Ms Liu, Rio Tinto Alcan’s Asia Pacific president of primary metal had jetted in, in a show of strength from the world’s biggest aluminium company.
But the most telling line was left to Paul Hemburrow, the 38-year-old Australian who heads the company in New Zealand and is the smelter’s general manager.
“What we are saying is that if the bill proceeds as it’s currently written, it is likely to put us on the pathway to closure.”
In the velvet-gloved world of political lobbying and PR, this bore all the subtlety of cudgelling MPs with a fencepost.
Hemburrow’s argument was that being asked to share a portion of the country’s greenhouse gas responsibility was a financial bridge too far, leaving it so cash strapped, so marginal, it would have to shift elsewhere.
What may not have been understood by many, as Rio Tinto Alcan offered this scenario of gloom and grief back in May, was the company’s obligations would be heavily subsidised, only having to pay 10 per cent of its 2005 greenhouse gas emissions until 2019 - it wouldn’t have to pay its full dues until 2030. Moreover there would be two reviews of the scheme to ensure it wasn’t an unfair imposition.
Nor would many have been aware that Rio Tinto Alcan New Zealand, which owns nearly 80 per cent of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (the remainder owned by Sumitomo Chemical Company of Japan), is hardly on the verge of collapse – with aluminium prices soaring to over US$3000 a tonne (having nearly doubled since 2004), last year it had revenue of $1.1 billion and profits of $204 million. Its parent company, Rio Tinto, is scarcely an international sprat either, last year having paid US$38.1 billion for Alcan to dominate world aluminium production. It’s the world’s third largest minerals company, has operations in 61 countries, 25 other smelters and its 2007 profit was US$7.4 billion.
Fewer still would have bothered to do the sums, as economist Rod Oram did, that suggest even with an extremely high price of carbon the eventual cost to the company would actually be minimal – around 3 per cent.
And as people shivered at the thought of Southland’s second largest employer disappearing after nearly four decades, it’s a fair guess that most wouldn’t have realised Hemburrow’s tactless threat was an echo of one made by successive smelter chiefs: Push us, squeeze us and we’ll piss off.
***
This is how aluminium is made:
Bauxite, a pebbly red material, is mined and refined into a white powder, alumina. This is then dumped into a chemical bath, simmering at nearly 1000 degrees C, through which huge amounts of electricity are passed causing a reaction that creates aluminium and spills off CO2. It’s clever, but it ain’t new – the technique that nearly all the world’s 260 smelters still use was invented in 1886, has changed little and simply relies on enormous quantities of electricity – in Tiwai’s case close to 15 per cent of everything used in New Zealand or the amount used by 625,000 homes.
This is how a smelter is made:
In 1956, Australian company Consolidated Zinc approached the New Zealand government about constructing a smelter, indicating it would come here if guaranteed a large source of electricity.
Serendipitously, as early as 1904 the government had considered the hydroelectric potential of Lake Manapouri, buried in the Fiordland heartland, so the two ideas were meshed and the parties became industrial dancing partners. Initially Consolidated Zinc (which soon became Comalco) was going to build both the Manapouri power station and a smelter at Tiwai but by 1961 said it didn’t have enough money so the government built the power station.
However a special Act was passed in 1963 giving the company rights to the station’s power for 100 years.
In 1969 the first electricity was generated from Manapouri and in April 1971 the first aluminium smelted at Tiwai.
Today the fruit of that coupling can be seen south of Invercargill, where the Southern Ocean finally beaches itself after journeying from Antarctica.
Twin columns of pylons carrying Manapouri’s energy loom from the landscape, straddle the road to the smelter in a quietly hissing colonnade, then swing off across flax fringed swampland, tiptoe across Awarua Bay and sling their wires for a further kilometre to the smelter, tucked in the curl of Tiwai peninsula across from Bluff.
It essentially takes the entire output of Manapouri, our country’s largest hydroelectric power station, and pays roughly a quarter of what you pay for your power.
For something that consumes so much of the country’s electricity, the smelter’s a disappointingly unremarkable destination with sulking buildings in variegated grey, as if all the colour has been leached from them after decades of industrial effort. Only a smoke stack rises from these lower case roofs, like an exclamation mark signalling the smelter’s steadfastness.
Three strands of barbed wire atop a mesh fence and several warning signs make it clear this is smelter territory – its own world at the end of the world.
Inside however some of the purest aluminium in the world is manufactured – up to 99.98 per cent unadulterated – with a third of its production used for cellphones, computers and the wings of the new Airbus A380 aircraft. (Some is also used for less exciting purposes, such as window frames and packaging foil.)
The smelter is essentially four lines of “pots” – the cells where alumina from Australia is constantly mixed with Manapouri electricity. At Tiwai, 672 pots produce about 350,000 tonnes of aluminium annually – just under one per cent of the world’s production. Nearly 90 per cent of this is shipped to predominantly Asian markets from a wharf that stretches into Bluff Harbour like a half-submerged fenceline.
Though you can stare down an entire 600m potline and see nobody, such is the quiet, almost subterranean process of aluminium smelting, the site employs 915 fulltime staff and contractors and studies estimate another 1600 Southland jobs may rely on the smelter’s existence.
Locally, it’s considered a good employer – more than 100 staff are members of its 25-year club, a handful having worked there since it started, and it paid $78 million in wages last year with its average pay higher than the area’s mean.
It contributes to the community in many other ways, from school science fairs to helping save the kakapo and you’d struggle to find opponents to it along Invercargill’s pavements.
The irony is though, the smelter was born amidst controversy, has attracted criticism throughout its life, and still, somehow, finds itself defending its right to be here. Because not only does the smelter often threaten to quit the country, others have long called for the government to show it the door.
***
Deep deep beneath Lake Manapouri, the hum of the power station becomes a controlled roar the closer you get to its heart. Seven massive turbines are constantly spun with water that’s plummeted 166m from the lake’s surface and then, it’s job done, set flowing 10km through the mountains to be discharged into Doubtful Sound. It’s one of New Zealand’s great engineering feats but it came at a great cost with 16 men being killed - and almost at the price of a great lake.
Initial plans for the power station that would feed Tiwai’s smelter called for Lake Manapouri to be raised by up to 30m.
The country’s largest environmental protest, including a 265,000-strong petition, eventually saved the lake from what’s now unthinkable desecration.
Save Manapouri became a slogan for a generation and ushered in a new era of environmental awareness.
The smelter was inevitably sullied by association with the plans but it was its operation and tactics that soon became the focus.
In 1970 it was revealed preferential Comalco shares had been offered to influential New Zealanders including politicians, local councillors, judges and journalists.
Public concern rose as it emerged how cheaply Comalco was getting power and how many breaks it had been cut by a government desperate to lure foreign investment.
Its favoured status was reinforced in 1972 when electricity supply to Dunedin was disrupted so the smelter could maintain production.
Later studies showed the smelter paid minimal tax until the mid-1980s, because of depreciation allowances in its agreement with the government.
The country’s growing intolerance of such colossal projects became evident when a second smelter proposed for Aramoana near Dunedin in the 1970s was canned for economic and environmental reasons after huge protest.
Rio Tinto’s controversial involvement in international events, from dealing with Spain’s fascists in the 1930s to the mired events of Papua New Guinea’s Panguna Mine, has also tarnished the current owner’s image over the decades.
The organisation now known as Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) was born largely from opposition to the smelter and how its owners were seen to be ripping off New Zealand.
More than 30 years on, spokesman Murray Horton still beats a drum calling for action against the smelter.
After Rio Tinto’s appearance at the select committee Horton issued one of his inimically blunt press releases headlined: “Rio Tinto, Stop Crying Wolf. Just Close The Bluff Smelter & Bugger Off.”
Horton objects to both the cheap price Rio Tinto Alcan pays for such a large chunk of the country’s electricity and also how successive governments have flinched every time the corporate has flexed its muscle through heavyweight lobbyists and heavy-handed threats.
“Effectively what we’re doing is exporting electricity that they get at top secret, dirt cheap prices. And whenever that’s put under threat they threaten to walk.
“They’ve outwitted all the governments since Holyoake and when New Zealand industry was thrown open to the bracing winds of market forces and economics in the ’80s none of that affected Comalco. They’ve always been big fans of corporate welfare – ie. you and me subsidising their electricity – it’s the biggest bludger in the country.”
Back in the ’60s at a time when the smelter was being built, Horton stood shoulder to shoulder on the front lines of anti-Vietnam War protests with Tim Shadbolt.
Today, however, they face each other across the lines, Shadbolt now Invercargill’s mayor and cheerleader for the smelter.
“The thought of it closing is frightening. We’re less dependent on it now than in the ’70s and ’80s when one in four jobs was associated with the smelter – now it’s only about one in 10 – but it’s still hugely significant.”
Shadbolt has strong historical attachment to the issue – after protesting against the lake being raised he worked on the Manapouri tunnel project for a year during his university days.
“Manapouri was built for the smelter and the smelter was built for Manapouri. So they kind of have a historical right that we’re quite protective about. We built Manapouri for our own benefit really and most of the workers were from Southland or Invercargill. It was a man a mile getting killed and all the New Zealanders killed were Southlanders. So we feel we made the sacrifice, we did the work specifically for the smelter and we should have first right to the electricity.”
And he admits the council tries to keep Rio Tinto happy because the multinational “wouldn’t worry for more than two seconds whether it stays open or closes. I’ve met the directors – to us it’s a huge deal, to most New Zealanders it’s at least a recognised deal, but to Rio, well, it doesn’t really matter.”
Thus, building a new $12 million bridge to the smelter is the latest example of corporate appeasement borne by ratepayers.
“But I still respect and like guys like Murray Horton because they’re patriots in a way, they’re looking at the national interest and you need people like that. And I guess I’m paid, my job is to look after Invercargill’s interests - so I’m a mercenary and he’s an idealist in this situation, so I have to respect him.”
***
But what would happen if Rio Tinto did leave, as they’ve threatened and as others are calling for them to do?
For a start, you wouldn’t be able to use half of Manapouri’s power anywhere else. Constraints on the national grid mean you couldn’t get more than about 300MW further north than Roxburgh without a significant upgrade of transmission lines.
Estimates for this work vary between $40 million and $200 million (depending on whether a new line of pylons is needed) and consents could take years to be granted. While Transpower, the state-owned company that runs the national grid, is looking at such scenarios, no upgrade is imminent.
And though Southland’s booming dairy industry could soak up some of Manapouri’s output, its demand would be tiny compared to the electricity hungry beast that is the smelter.
Secondly, even if we could get the power to places like Auckland where it’s most needed, it wouldn’t solve the country’s current shortage of electricity generation, but only delay the need for more windfarms or geothermal plants. New Zealand’s electricity needs are growing by around 150MW a year, so closing the smelter would mean we mightn’t have to build anything for about four years. But then, without significant reduction in our power use, we’d be back to where we are now, worrying if we have enough power to get us through a dry winter.
Electricity Commission chairman David Caygill says calls for the smelter to be shut down so we can claw back a large chunk of electricity are a knee jerk, not a sensible, long-term view.
“It’s almost a panic response – the only thing we can think of.”
Thirdly, smelter supporters say that if Rio Tinto left they’d simply re-establish the smelter in a country like China, where its power would probably come from a greenhouse gas emitting coal-powered station, not carbon free hydro like Manapouri. Thus, they argue, the world would be better off if they stay here.
However one obvious scenario would be that if we had Manapouri’s power to use across the rest of the country we could greatly reduce our use of coal and gas such as at the Huntly power station which produces about 12.5 per cent of the country’s power. Doing this would save the country millions in carbon credits needed to meet our Kyoto obligations and arguably balance the emissions a relocated smelter in China might create.
(Amongst Rio Tinto’s justifications for Tiwai has been exactly this suggestion of “carbon leakage” – that if things get too tough here it might go to China where there are laxer emissions rules and this would end up harming the world’s environment more. This blunt acknowledgement that company profits supersede environmental obligations tends to undermine claims in their sustainability report that they accept responsibility to work towards climate change solutions. Claims the smelter wishes to “show leadership” in responding to climate change also appear at variance with their suggestion in 2005 they build a 600MW coal-powered station to produce their own electricity at a time when they were negotiating a new power contract.)
Fourthly, if the smelter closed, a cornerstone of Southland’s economy would be removed and with it, hundreds of jobs.
However the effect may not be as bad as the smelter’s owners and its supporters have postulated.
Southland’s economy is positively pulsating at present –farm prices have almost doubled in the last year; broadband is available in 96 per cent of the region; coffee brands jostle for supremacy on pavement sandwich boards and it’s a bugger of a place to get a park at peak times.
Large developments are slated in the dairy, forestry and oil industries, the Bluff oyster beds are resurgent and the region is desperate for workers says mayor Shadbolt.
With the lowest unemployment rate in the country (2 per cent), two recent economic reports predict it will need an extra 12,500 workers by 2016 just to maintain its current economic growth.
So if the smelter closed few workers would end up on the dole, especially given claims the smelter would seek to redeploy skilled staff to its other operations overseas. (Though just how many Invercargill workers would opt to transfer to China or the likes of Libya where Rio Tinto has planned another smelter, is untested.)
Nor is it as if Southland hasn’t suffered and survived other huge industry closures – not far from the smelter, Bluff’s Ocean Beach freezing works closed in 1991 with 900 jobs lost.
And while the closure of Fisher & Paykel’s Dunedin factory (430 jobs) and Dannevirke’s Oringi freezing works (466 jobs) made headlines for a day or two earlier this year before the nation shrugged shoulders and carried on, jobs at Tiwai are considered almost sacrosanct by the smelter’s defenders.
Steve Canny, group manager of economic development group Venture Southland, accepts the smelter may be a case of, good for Southland but crap for the rest of the country.
But he says those in the deep south get irritated with “the shallow north” wanting electricity that underpins Southland’s economy without wanting power stations built on their patch.
“I can understand how an urbanite in Auckland could be a bit nervous if the power started going out. But unless there’s substantial investment in a transmission upgrade and the not-in-my-backyard scenario is being addressed in major metros, then this discussion has no substance whatsoever.”
***
So just how realistic are Rio Tinto’s threats to leave New Zealand? As mentioned, the company has a history of suggesting drastic action or departure when something upsets it.
It did it when wanting to buy the Manapouri station; when the government proposed carbon taxes; during negotiations over electricity prices and most recently over proposed greenhouse gas emissions charges.
Victoria University senior economics lecturer Geoff Bertram, who’s studied the smelter for more than 30 years, says the latest threat was lamentably predictable.
“It was an example of the bully boy tactics Rio Tinto deploys very effectively. They’re probably the best of all the corporates at this game in New Zealand.
“They have good political lobbying skills and an excellent PR machine and they’ve always played their trump card – if you’re horrible to us we’ll leave. If you have a genuine and credible threat like that you can play it as many times as the government’s prepared to cave in - political leverage is everything. And the New Zealand government is one of the weakest I’ve ever observed in this game – by international standards New Zealand’s a pushover.”
Ironically Bertram’s office, with a career’s-worth of stacked documents threatening to avalanche and bury him come the next big earthquake, looks out on the Beehive where he says successive Ministers and governments have buckled before the smelter’s owners.
“Were I the government I’d have long ago instructed officials to prepare a fully-costed contingency plan for compensating all the people that would suffer in Southland if the smelter closed. And when they came to me and said, ‘if you don’t do our will we’ll close the smelter,’ I’d be able to say, ‘all right, off you go, and I’m going to spend the necessary cash not on subsidising your operation but on making sure the ordinary New Zealanders who depend on you for a living can make a transition to a sustainable alternative – have a nice day.’”
In two earlier reports, Bertram calculated the smelter had a negative economic impact on New Zealand in its first 20 years.
Now, he says, on balance it’s probably had a moderately beneficial effect through taxes, wages, port fees and buying supplies locally.
But he says its benefits are nothing compared to say the tourism sector yet the aluminium industry wields a much larger stick politically – vastly disproportionate to its actual economic contribution.
“It’s the small business stuff that makes the New Zealand economy tick, it’s the big monopoly giants that make the government crawl.”
Rio Tinto’s influence in New Zealand isn’t unique.
In his book Running From The Storm, one of Australia’s foremost climate change commentators, Clive Hamilton, notes:
“The (aluminium) industry has repeatedly managed to bully and bluff governments into giving it special concessions and has constantly retarded progress towards resolving the greenhouse issue. It has without doubt been the most self-serving, uncompromising lobby group in the climate change debate in Australia.”
Rio Tinto has a bauxite mine, two alumina refineries and two smelters in Australia.
Across Molesworth St from Geoff Bertram’s office, Climate Change Minister David Parker rejects the notion he’s unwilling to stand up to the smelter owners, insisting the government is determined to push through its emissions trading legislation and calling Rio Tinto’s claims “exaggerated” and “an idle threat”.
“I think we all know that business is about money and in the end businesses are largely motivated by effects on their profit and loss. So they try and minimise things that increase their loss. And that’s what Rio Tinto’s doing here – I wouldn’t call it improper but I see it for what it is.
“They’ve got a private interest in minimising the amount of responsibility they have to take for the cost of their emissions. Now, there’s a cost to the country for their emissions but from their perspective they’d rather the taxpayer bore the cost than them.
“And I don’t think the burden upon them is large in relation to the profitability of their business.”
Parker, who is also Energy Minister, says Rio Tinto is clearly only in New Zealand because it gets a competitive power price and the Tiwai smelter is in fact very well placed compared to other smelters that rely on electricity from coal and gas fuelled stations.
“We don’t think they’ll close. I’ve got no doubt the country would survive (if it did) but it’s not something we’d have as an objective. It’s clearly a substantial employer and a substantial contributor to the Southland economy – but that doesn’t mean we’d have it there at all costs.”
***
Paul Hemburrow insists he stands by his assertion that the smelter would end up closing under current emissions trading legislation. But given such certainty, he’s strangely reluctant to say when this might happen, merely suggesting “you can do the numbers” – a bizarre statement considering how secretive the smelter is about its costs.
He stresses Rio Tinto supports emissions trading and is happy to pay its share – but just not unless all other smelters in the world face the same costs. (It should be noted the smelter has reduced CO2 emissions 42 per cent since 1990, despite upping production 27 per cent.)
Nor will Hemburrow countenance suggestions the smelter gets cheap power let alone that taxpayers and other electricity users effectively subsidise the giant multinational.
“The contract price we have is an outcome of a commercially very robust negotiation,” says Hemburrow wielding a shield of business jargon.
“I think there’s a misconception it’s a particularly cheap price, because it’s certainly not.”
Well, maybe not cheap in the hungry world of aluminium smelting – but certainly much cheaper than anyone else in New Zealand gets it would appear.
Neither power supply company Meridian Energy or Rio Tinto will disclose the price the smelter pays, predictably insisting it’s commercially sensitive.
But using industry figures and the smelter’s own accounts it’s possible to estimate roughly how much Rio Tinto pays for its electricity – somewhere between 5.2 cents and 5.9 cents a kilowatt hour.
By comparison the average price for other industrial consumers in 2007 was 9.2 cents and residential customers 18.6 cents.
The smelter’s current contract runs till 2012 but it’s already negotiated another deal from 2013 to 2030 with Meridian.
Presently it has a fixed contract for about 90 per cent of its electricity, buying the remainder from the spot market, paying a price that can fluctuate wildly.
Meridian is a state owned enterprise and returns dividends to the government so taxpayers have a legitimate interest in the smelter paying a top price for a national resource. So has Meridian done a good job on our behalf or is Rio Tinto getting fat at our expense?
Well, the latest contract took three years of bargaining and Meridian is happy with it, saying it adds significant value to the company.
And when one customer accounts for 40 per cent of your sales and is the biggest customer in the country by far, you’re going to give them a reasonable discount whether you’re selling spuds from a corner store or electricity from the deep south.
However the fact Rio Tinto knows Meridian can’t sell much of Manapouri’s power to anyone else because of transmission constraints undoubtedly strengthens its hand in negotiations.
For Rio Tinto, for whom electricity is 40 per cent of the smelter’s costs, it’s all about the bottom line.
When predictions of power blackouts were swirling throughout autumn, Rio Tinto agreed to cut five per cent – and then another five per cent of its electricity consumption.
While this was couched in terms of a generous gesture to help the country’s power situation the reality was it was primarily economic rather than altruistic. With spot prices leaping to over 30 cents a kWh, the smelter was keen to cut an unsustainable cost. When Meridian (who was running short of power to provide its other customers and being forced to buy extra on the expensive spot market) asked it to go a little bit further, it’s understood Rio Tinto was compensated for shutting down more pots.
Reports that the cuts have cost the company millions of dollars should be seen in this light.
As economist Rod Oram puts it, Rio Tinto gets “a hugely sweet deal”.
He says the Tiwai smelter is in a fantastic position to market its aluminium as a green product, because its electricity doesn’t come from a coal gobbling power plant, and was amazed when it claimed the government’s emissions trading scheme could force the smelter’s closure.
“Some particulars may need to be worked out but to leap from the particulars to the cataclysmic is incredibly bad strategy on their part.”
Oram says just what economic benefit the smelter has brought to New Zealand has never been resolved because some of the numbers required for a full analysis remain secret.
(Rio Tinto is currently preparing its own study to quantify the smelter’s value to the country and community, expected to be released shortly.)
Many, including Geoff Bertram, suggest we must be able to use 15 per cent of the country’s electricity more efficiently and more profitably than in a single aluminium smelter that produces 4.5 per cent of New Zealand’s export earnings, employs just 0.06 of the country’s workers and sees all the profits go overseas.
But Oram says it’s impossible to know whether this would be the case unless you could compare it with another economic activity that would use the power the smelter currently swallows.
“On balance, I’m saying, well, it’s here, so we might as well make the most of it.”
***
So while it might be an economic dinosaur, a harbinger of the country’s misjudged Think Big projects; while it might throw its weight about and expect privileged status; while its economic benefit is arguable, there seems little likelihood the smelter will waltz off in the near future.
The reason why attention has again been focused on it this year is inarguably due to talk of tepid showers and blackouts. If the hydro lakes had been full and power plentiful, everyone would have happily ignored the enormous amount of electricity this one factory uses.
But the hydro lakes weren’t full – in fact the inflow for the three months to mid-June was the lowest since 1947.
Adding to the fact less power could be generated from hydro stations, another power station packed up and other plants were forced to reduce generation.
To stave off power cuts it was necessary to kickstart an expensive diesel-fired emergency generator at Whirinaki and restart part of an asbestos-riddled plant in New Plymouth. For a country with a wealth of generation resources – rivers, strong winds and geothermal steam – our electricity system looked like a bogged up Lada limping through winter.
And it’s hardly a new situation – there have been four winter shortages in the last eight years that led the smelter to cut production.
But Energy Minister David Parker says that given it was such a dry year and given there were unforeseen plant failures, the fact we survived without blackouts shows how resilient the system actually is.
Electricity Commissioner David Caygill, whose job it is to ensure a secure power supply, agrees, saying talk of a power crisis were largely a media beat up.
“The words challenge or problem sound much less interesting.”
Caygill who sits in a harbour-view Wellington office, ironically a few floors below the offices of Rio Tinto Alcan and Sumitomo Chemicals, says 4000MW of potential electricity generation is being built, consented or applied for – an enormous wave of power he’s confident will satisfy the country’s electricity demands into the future.
Thus, talk of shutting down the smelter to save the lights going out is naïve and pointless, he says.
And that’s possibly the final reality – if more generation comes on stream soon and talk of blackouts disappears, everyone will forget about the smelter and its arguably inefficient use of so much power.
It may be a relic, it may even be a rip off, but maybe we just have to accept it’s here to stay.
The Power of One
As the country emerges from another winter with threatened power blackouts, Mike White investigates why one factory, the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter, is allowed to swallow nearly 15 per cent of the country’s precious electricity and asks whether it’s time they shut up.
He wore a serious suit and a whiff of hair product. She wore black, and the rimless glasses of generations of librarians.
Paul Hemburrow and Xiaoling Liu had come to Parliament’s finance select committee with dark dress and a grave message from their employer, aluminium colossus Rio Tinto Alcan (formerly Comalco): Carry on with your climate change legislation and we’ll have to close our aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point near Bluff.
Ms Liu, Rio Tinto Alcan’s Asia Pacific president of primary metal had jetted in, in a show of strength from the world’s biggest aluminium company.
But the most telling line was left to Paul Hemburrow, the 38-year-old Australian who heads the company in New Zealand and is the smelter’s general manager.
“What we are saying is that if the bill proceeds as it’s currently written, it is likely to put us on the pathway to closure.”
In the velvet-gloved world of political lobbying and PR, this bore all the subtlety of cudgelling MPs with a fencepost.
Hemburrow’s argument was that being asked to share a portion of the country’s greenhouse gas responsibility was a financial bridge too far, leaving it so cash strapped, so marginal, it would have to shift elsewhere.
What may not have been understood by many, as Rio Tinto Alcan offered this scenario of gloom and grief back in May, was the company’s obligations would be heavily subsidised, only having to pay 10 per cent of its 2005 greenhouse gas emissions until 2019 - it wouldn’t have to pay its full dues until 2030. Moreover there would be two reviews of the scheme to ensure it wasn’t an unfair imposition.
Nor would many have been aware that Rio Tinto Alcan New Zealand, which owns nearly 80 per cent of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (the remainder owned by Sumitomo Chemical Company of Japan), is hardly on the verge of collapse – with aluminium prices soaring to over US$3000 a tonne (having nearly doubled since 2004), last year it had revenue of $1.1 billion and profits of $204 million. Its parent company, Rio Tinto, is scarcely an international sprat either, last year having paid US$38.1 billion for Alcan to dominate world aluminium production. It’s the world’s third largest minerals company, has operations in 61 countries, 25 other smelters and its 2007 profit was US$7.4 billion.
Fewer still would have bothered to do the sums, as economist Rod Oram did, that suggest even with an extremely high price of carbon the eventual cost to the company would actually be minimal – around 3 per cent.
And as people shivered at the thought of Southland’s second largest employer disappearing after nearly four decades, it’s a fair guess that most wouldn’t have realised Hemburrow’s tactless threat was an echo of one made by successive smelter chiefs: Push us, squeeze us and we’ll piss off.
***
This is how aluminium is made:
Bauxite, a pebbly red material, is mined and refined into a white powder, alumina. This is then dumped into a chemical bath, simmering at nearly 1000 degrees C, through which huge amounts of electricity are passed causing a reaction that creates aluminium and spills off CO2. It’s clever, but it ain’t new – the technique that nearly all the world’s 260 smelters still use was invented in 1886, has changed little and simply relies on enormous quantities of electricity – in Tiwai’s case close to 15 per cent of everything used in New Zealand or the amount used by 625,000 homes.
This is how a smelter is made:
In 1956, Australian company Consolidated Zinc approached the New Zealand government about constructing a smelter, indicating it would come here if guaranteed a large source of electricity.
Serendipitously, as early as 1904 the government had considered the hydroelectric potential of Lake Manapouri, buried in the Fiordland heartland, so the two ideas were meshed and the parties became industrial dancing partners. Initially Consolidated Zinc (which soon became Comalco) was going to build both the Manapouri power station and a smelter at Tiwai but by 1961 said it didn’t have enough money so the government built the power station.
However a special Act was passed in 1963 giving the company rights to the station’s power for 100 years.
In 1969 the first electricity was generated from Manapouri and in April 1971 the first aluminium smelted at Tiwai.
Today the fruit of that coupling can be seen south of Invercargill, where the Southern Ocean finally beaches itself after journeying from Antarctica.
Twin columns of pylons carrying Manapouri’s energy loom from the landscape, straddle the road to the smelter in a quietly hissing colonnade, then swing off across flax fringed swampland, tiptoe across Awarua Bay and sling their wires for a further kilometre to the smelter, tucked in the curl of Tiwai peninsula across from Bluff.
It essentially takes the entire output of Manapouri, our country’s largest hydroelectric power station, and pays roughly a quarter of what you pay for your power.
For something that consumes so much of the country’s electricity, the smelter’s a disappointingly unremarkable destination with sulking buildings in variegated grey, as if all the colour has been leached from them after decades of industrial effort. Only a smoke stack rises from these lower case roofs, like an exclamation mark signalling the smelter’s steadfastness.
Three strands of barbed wire atop a mesh fence and several warning signs make it clear this is smelter territory – its own world at the end of the world.
Inside however some of the purest aluminium in the world is manufactured – up to 99.98 per cent unadulterated – with a third of its production used for cellphones, computers and the wings of the new Airbus A380 aircraft. (Some is also used for less exciting purposes, such as window frames and packaging foil.)
The smelter is essentially four lines of “pots” – the cells where alumina from Australia is constantly mixed with Manapouri electricity. At Tiwai, 672 pots produce about 350,000 tonnes of aluminium annually – just under one per cent of the world’s production. Nearly 90 per cent of this is shipped to predominantly Asian markets from a wharf that stretches into Bluff Harbour like a half-submerged fenceline.
Though you can stare down an entire 600m potline and see nobody, such is the quiet, almost subterranean process of aluminium smelting, the site employs 915 fulltime staff and contractors and studies estimate another 1600 Southland jobs may rely on the smelter’s existence.
Locally, it’s considered a good employer – more than 100 staff are members of its 25-year club, a handful having worked there since it started, and it paid $78 million in wages last year with its average pay higher than the area’s mean.
It contributes to the community in many other ways, from school science fairs to helping save the kakapo and you’d struggle to find opponents to it along Invercargill’s pavements.
The irony is though, the smelter was born amidst controversy, has attracted criticism throughout its life, and still, somehow, finds itself defending its right to be here. Because not only does the smelter often threaten to quit the country, others have long called for the government to show it the door.
***
Deep deep beneath Lake Manapouri, the hum of the power station becomes a controlled roar the closer you get to its heart. Seven massive turbines are constantly spun with water that’s plummeted 166m from the lake’s surface and then, it’s job done, set flowing 10km through the mountains to be discharged into Doubtful Sound. It’s one of New Zealand’s great engineering feats but it came at a great cost with 16 men being killed - and almost at the price of a great lake.
Initial plans for the power station that would feed Tiwai’s smelter called for Lake Manapouri to be raised by up to 30m.
The country’s largest environmental protest, including a 265,000-strong petition, eventually saved the lake from what’s now unthinkable desecration.
Save Manapouri became a slogan for a generation and ushered in a new era of environmental awareness.
The smelter was inevitably sullied by association with the plans but it was its operation and tactics that soon became the focus.
In 1970 it was revealed preferential Comalco shares had been offered to influential New Zealanders including politicians, local councillors, judges and journalists.
Public concern rose as it emerged how cheaply Comalco was getting power and how many breaks it had been cut by a government desperate to lure foreign investment.
Its favoured status was reinforced in 1972 when electricity supply to Dunedin was disrupted so the smelter could maintain production.
Later studies showed the smelter paid minimal tax until the mid-1980s, because of depreciation allowances in its agreement with the government.
The country’s growing intolerance of such colossal projects became evident when a second smelter proposed for Aramoana near Dunedin in the 1970s was canned for economic and environmental reasons after huge protest.
Rio Tinto’s controversial involvement in international events, from dealing with Spain’s fascists in the 1930s to the mired events of Papua New Guinea’s Panguna Mine, has also tarnished the current owner’s image over the decades.
The organisation now known as Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) was born largely from opposition to the smelter and how its owners were seen to be ripping off New Zealand.
More than 30 years on, spokesman Murray Horton still beats a drum calling for action against the smelter.
After Rio Tinto’s appearance at the select committee Horton issued one of his inimically blunt press releases headlined: “Rio Tinto, Stop Crying Wolf. Just Close The Bluff Smelter & Bugger Off.”
Horton objects to both the cheap price Rio Tinto Alcan pays for such a large chunk of the country’s electricity and also how successive governments have flinched every time the corporate has flexed its muscle through heavyweight lobbyists and heavy-handed threats.
“Effectively what we’re doing is exporting electricity that they get at top secret, dirt cheap prices. And whenever that’s put under threat they threaten to walk.
“They’ve outwitted all the governments since Holyoake and when New Zealand industry was thrown open to the bracing winds of market forces and economics in the ’80s none of that affected Comalco. They’ve always been big fans of corporate welfare – ie. you and me subsidising their electricity – it’s the biggest bludger in the country.”
Back in the ’60s at a time when the smelter was being built, Horton stood shoulder to shoulder on the front lines of anti-Vietnam War protests with Tim Shadbolt.
Today, however, they face each other across the lines, Shadbolt now Invercargill’s mayor and cheerleader for the smelter.
“The thought of it closing is frightening. We’re less dependent on it now than in the ’70s and ’80s when one in four jobs was associated with the smelter – now it’s only about one in 10 – but it’s still hugely significant.”
Shadbolt has strong historical attachment to the issue – after protesting against the lake being raised he worked on the Manapouri tunnel project for a year during his university days.
“Manapouri was built for the smelter and the smelter was built for Manapouri. So they kind of have a historical right that we’re quite protective about. We built Manapouri for our own benefit really and most of the workers were from Southland or Invercargill. It was a man a mile getting killed and all the New Zealanders killed were Southlanders. So we feel we made the sacrifice, we did the work specifically for the smelter and we should have first right to the electricity.”
And he admits the council tries to keep Rio Tinto happy because the multinational “wouldn’t worry for more than two seconds whether it stays open or closes. I’ve met the directors – to us it’s a huge deal, to most New Zealanders it’s at least a recognised deal, but to Rio, well, it doesn’t really matter.”
Thus, building a new $12 million bridge to the smelter is the latest example of corporate appeasement borne by ratepayers.
“But I still respect and like guys like Murray Horton because they’re patriots in a way, they’re looking at the national interest and you need people like that. And I guess I’m paid, my job is to look after Invercargill’s interests - so I’m a mercenary and he’s an idealist in this situation, so I have to respect him.”
***
But what would happen if Rio Tinto did leave, as they’ve threatened and as others are calling for them to do?
For a start, you wouldn’t be able to use half of Manapouri’s power anywhere else. Constraints on the national grid mean you couldn’t get more than about 300MW further north than Roxburgh without a significant upgrade of transmission lines.
Estimates for this work vary between $40 million and $200 million (depending on whether a new line of pylons is needed) and consents could take years to be granted. While Transpower, the state-owned company that runs the national grid, is looking at such scenarios, no upgrade is imminent.
And though Southland’s booming dairy industry could soak up some of Manapouri’s output, its demand would be tiny compared to the electricity hungry beast that is the smelter.
Secondly, even if we could get the power to places like Auckland where it’s most needed, it wouldn’t solve the country’s current shortage of electricity generation, but only delay the need for more windfarms or geothermal plants. New Zealand’s electricity needs are growing by around 150MW a year, so closing the smelter would mean we mightn’t have to build anything for about four years. But then, without significant reduction in our power use, we’d be back to where we are now, worrying if we have enough power to get us through a dry winter.
Electricity Commission chairman David Caygill says calls for the smelter to be shut down so we can claw back a large chunk of electricity are a knee jerk, not a sensible, long-term view.
“It’s almost a panic response – the only thing we can think of.”
Thirdly, smelter supporters say that if Rio Tinto left they’d simply re-establish the smelter in a country like China, where its power would probably come from a greenhouse gas emitting coal-powered station, not carbon free hydro like Manapouri. Thus, they argue, the world would be better off if they stay here.
However one obvious scenario would be that if we had Manapouri’s power to use across the rest of the country we could greatly reduce our use of coal and gas such as at the Huntly power station which produces about 12.5 per cent of the country’s power. Doing this would save the country millions in carbon credits needed to meet our Kyoto obligations and arguably balance the emissions a relocated smelter in China might create.
(Amongst Rio Tinto’s justifications for Tiwai has been exactly this suggestion of “carbon leakage” – that if things get too tough here it might go to China where there are laxer emissions rules and this would end up harming the world’s environment more. This blunt acknowledgement that company profits supersede environmental obligations tends to undermine claims in their sustainability report that they accept responsibility to work towards climate change solutions. Claims the smelter wishes to “show leadership” in responding to climate change also appear at variance with their suggestion in 2005 they build a 600MW coal-powered station to produce their own electricity at a time when they were negotiating a new power contract.)
Fourthly, if the smelter closed, a cornerstone of Southland’s economy would be removed and with it, hundreds of jobs.
However the effect may not be as bad as the smelter’s owners and its supporters have postulated.
Southland’s economy is positively pulsating at present –farm prices have almost doubled in the last year; broadband is available in 96 per cent of the region; coffee brands jostle for supremacy on pavement sandwich boards and it’s a bugger of a place to get a park at peak times.
Large developments are slated in the dairy, forestry and oil industries, the Bluff oyster beds are resurgent and the region is desperate for workers says mayor Shadbolt.
With the lowest unemployment rate in the country (2 per cent), two recent economic reports predict it will need an extra 12,500 workers by 2016 just to maintain its current economic growth.
So if the smelter closed few workers would end up on the dole, especially given claims the smelter would seek to redeploy skilled staff to its other operations overseas. (Though just how many Invercargill workers would opt to transfer to China or the likes of Libya where Rio Tinto has planned another smelter, is untested.)
Nor is it as if Southland hasn’t suffered and survived other huge industry closures – not far from the smelter, Bluff’s Ocean Beach freezing works closed in 1991 with 900 jobs lost.
And while the closure of Fisher & Paykel’s Dunedin factory (430 jobs) and Dannevirke’s Oringi freezing works (466 jobs) made headlines for a day or two earlier this year before the nation shrugged shoulders and carried on, jobs at Tiwai are considered almost sacrosanct by the smelter’s defenders.
Steve Canny, group manager of economic development group Venture Southland, accepts the smelter may be a case of, good for Southland but crap for the rest of the country.
But he says those in the deep south get irritated with “the shallow north” wanting electricity that underpins Southland’s economy without wanting power stations built on their patch.
“I can understand how an urbanite in Auckland could be a bit nervous if the power started going out. But unless there’s substantial investment in a transmission upgrade and the not-in-my-backyard scenario is being addressed in major metros, then this discussion has no substance whatsoever.”
***
So just how realistic are Rio Tinto’s threats to leave New Zealand? As mentioned, the company has a history of suggesting drastic action or departure when something upsets it.
It did it when wanting to buy the Manapouri station; when the government proposed carbon taxes; during negotiations over electricity prices and most recently over proposed greenhouse gas emissions charges.
Victoria University senior economics lecturer Geoff Bertram, who’s studied the smelter for more than 30 years, says the latest threat was lamentably predictable.
“It was an example of the bully boy tactics Rio Tinto deploys very effectively. They’re probably the best of all the corporates at this game in New Zealand.
“They have good political lobbying skills and an excellent PR machine and they’ve always played their trump card – if you’re horrible to us we’ll leave. If you have a genuine and credible threat like that you can play it as many times as the government’s prepared to cave in - political leverage is everything. And the New Zealand government is one of the weakest I’ve ever observed in this game – by international standards New Zealand’s a pushover.”
Ironically Bertram’s office, with a career’s-worth of stacked documents threatening to avalanche and bury him come the next big earthquake, looks out on the Beehive where he says successive Ministers and governments have buckled before the smelter’s owners.
“Were I the government I’d have long ago instructed officials to prepare a fully-costed contingency plan for compensating all the people that would suffer in Southland if the smelter closed. And when they came to me and said, ‘if you don’t do our will we’ll close the smelter,’ I’d be able to say, ‘all right, off you go, and I’m going to spend the necessary cash not on subsidising your operation but on making sure the ordinary New Zealanders who depend on you for a living can make a transition to a sustainable alternative – have a nice day.’”
In two earlier reports, Bertram calculated the smelter had a negative economic impact on New Zealand in its first 20 years.
Now, he says, on balance it’s probably had a moderately beneficial effect through taxes, wages, port fees and buying supplies locally.
But he says its benefits are nothing compared to say the tourism sector yet the aluminium industry wields a much larger stick politically – vastly disproportionate to its actual economic contribution.
“It’s the small business stuff that makes the New Zealand economy tick, it’s the big monopoly giants that make the government crawl.”
Rio Tinto’s influence in New Zealand isn’t unique.
In his book Running From The Storm, one of Australia’s foremost climate change commentators, Clive Hamilton, notes:
“The (aluminium) industry has repeatedly managed to bully and bluff governments into giving it special concessions and has constantly retarded progress towards resolving the greenhouse issue. It has without doubt been the most self-serving, uncompromising lobby group in the climate change debate in Australia.”
Rio Tinto has a bauxite mine, two alumina refineries and two smelters in Australia.
Across Molesworth St from Geoff Bertram’s office, Climate Change Minister David Parker rejects the notion he’s unwilling to stand up to the smelter owners, insisting the government is determined to push through its emissions trading legislation and calling Rio Tinto’s claims “exaggerated” and “an idle threat”.
“I think we all know that business is about money and in the end businesses are largely motivated by effects on their profit and loss. So they try and minimise things that increase their loss. And that’s what Rio Tinto’s doing here – I wouldn’t call it improper but I see it for what it is.
“They’ve got a private interest in minimising the amount of responsibility they have to take for the cost of their emissions. Now, there’s a cost to the country for their emissions but from their perspective they’d rather the taxpayer bore the cost than them.
“And I don’t think the burden upon them is large in relation to the profitability of their business.”
Parker, who is also Energy Minister, says Rio Tinto is clearly only in New Zealand because it gets a competitive power price and the Tiwai smelter is in fact very well placed compared to other smelters that rely on electricity from coal and gas fuelled stations.
“We don’t think they’ll close. I’ve got no doubt the country would survive (if it did) but it’s not something we’d have as an objective. It’s clearly a substantial employer and a substantial contributor to the Southland economy – but that doesn’t mean we’d have it there at all costs.”
***
Paul Hemburrow insists he stands by his assertion that the smelter would end up closing under current emissions trading legislation. But given such certainty, he’s strangely reluctant to say when this might happen, merely suggesting “you can do the numbers” – a bizarre statement considering how secretive the smelter is about its costs.
He stresses Rio Tinto supports emissions trading and is happy to pay its share – but just not unless all other smelters in the world face the same costs. (It should be noted the smelter has reduced CO2 emissions 42 per cent since 1990, despite upping production 27 per cent.)
Nor will Hemburrow countenance suggestions the smelter gets cheap power let alone that taxpayers and other electricity users effectively subsidise the giant multinational.
“The contract price we have is an outcome of a commercially very robust negotiation,” says Hemburrow wielding a shield of business jargon.
“I think there’s a misconception it’s a particularly cheap price, because it’s certainly not.”
Well, maybe not cheap in the hungry world of aluminium smelting – but certainly much cheaper than anyone else in New Zealand gets it would appear.
Neither power supply company Meridian Energy or Rio Tinto will disclose the price the smelter pays, predictably insisting it’s commercially sensitive.
But using industry figures and the smelter’s own accounts it’s possible to estimate roughly how much Rio Tinto pays for its electricity – somewhere between 5.2 cents and 5.9 cents a kilowatt hour.
By comparison the average price for other industrial consumers in 2007 was 9.2 cents and residential customers 18.6 cents.
The smelter’s current contract runs till 2012 but it’s already negotiated another deal from 2013 to 2030 with Meridian.
Presently it has a fixed contract for about 90 per cent of its electricity, buying the remainder from the spot market, paying a price that can fluctuate wildly.
Meridian is a state owned enterprise and returns dividends to the government so taxpayers have a legitimate interest in the smelter paying a top price for a national resource. So has Meridian done a good job on our behalf or is Rio Tinto getting fat at our expense?
Well, the latest contract took three years of bargaining and Meridian is happy with it, saying it adds significant value to the company.
And when one customer accounts for 40 per cent of your sales and is the biggest customer in the country by far, you’re going to give them a reasonable discount whether you’re selling spuds from a corner store or electricity from the deep south.
However the fact Rio Tinto knows Meridian can’t sell much of Manapouri’s power to anyone else because of transmission constraints undoubtedly strengthens its hand in negotiations.
For Rio Tinto, for whom electricity is 40 per cent of the smelter’s costs, it’s all about the bottom line.
When predictions of power blackouts were swirling throughout autumn, Rio Tinto agreed to cut five per cent – and then another five per cent of its electricity consumption.
While this was couched in terms of a generous gesture to help the country’s power situation the reality was it was primarily economic rather than altruistic. With spot prices leaping to over 30 cents a kWh, the smelter was keen to cut an unsustainable cost. When Meridian (who was running short of power to provide its other customers and being forced to buy extra on the expensive spot market) asked it to go a little bit further, it’s understood Rio Tinto was compensated for shutting down more pots.
Reports that the cuts have cost the company millions of dollars should be seen in this light.
As economist Rod Oram puts it, Rio Tinto gets “a hugely sweet deal”.
He says the Tiwai smelter is in a fantastic position to market its aluminium as a green product, because its electricity doesn’t come from a coal gobbling power plant, and was amazed when it claimed the government’s emissions trading scheme could force the smelter’s closure.
“Some particulars may need to be worked out but to leap from the particulars to the cataclysmic is incredibly bad strategy on their part.”
Oram says just what economic benefit the smelter has brought to New Zealand has never been resolved because some of the numbers required for a full analysis remain secret.
(Rio Tinto is currently preparing its own study to quantify the smelter’s value to the country and community, expected to be released shortly.)
Many, including Geoff Bertram, suggest we must be able to use 15 per cent of the country’s electricity more efficiently and more profitably than in a single aluminium smelter that produces 4.5 per cent of New Zealand’s export earnings, employs just 0.06 of the country’s workers and sees all the profits go overseas.
But Oram says it’s impossible to know whether this would be the case unless you could compare it with another economic activity that would use the power the smelter currently swallows.
“On balance, I’m saying, well, it’s here, so we might as well make the most of it.”
***
So while it might be an economic dinosaur, a harbinger of the country’s misjudged Think Big projects; while it might throw its weight about and expect privileged status; while its economic benefit is arguable, there seems little likelihood the smelter will waltz off in the near future.
The reason why attention has again been focused on it this year is inarguably due to talk of tepid showers and blackouts. If the hydro lakes had been full and power plentiful, everyone would have happily ignored the enormous amount of electricity this one factory uses.
But the hydro lakes weren’t full – in fact the inflow for the three months to mid-June was the lowest since 1947.
Adding to the fact less power could be generated from hydro stations, another power station packed up and other plants were forced to reduce generation.
To stave off power cuts it was necessary to kickstart an expensive diesel-fired emergency generator at Whirinaki and restart part of an asbestos-riddled plant in New Plymouth. For a country with a wealth of generation resources – rivers, strong winds and geothermal steam – our electricity system looked like a bogged up Lada limping through winter.
And it’s hardly a new situation – there have been four winter shortages in the last eight years that led the smelter to cut production.
But Energy Minister David Parker says that given it was such a dry year and given there were unforeseen plant failures, the fact we survived without blackouts shows how resilient the system actually is.
Electricity Commissioner David Caygill, whose job it is to ensure a secure power supply, agrees, saying talk of a power crisis were largely a media beat up.
“The words challenge or problem sound much less interesting.”
Caygill who sits in a harbour-view Wellington office, ironically a few floors below the offices of Rio Tinto Alcan and Sumitomo Chemicals, says 4000MW of potential electricity generation is being built, consented or applied for – an enormous wave of power he’s confident will satisfy the country’s electricity demands into the future.
Thus, talk of shutting down the smelter to save the lights going out is naïve and pointless, he says.
And that’s possibly the final reality – if more generation comes on stream soon and talk of blackouts disappears, everyone will forget about the smelter and its arguably inefficient use of so much power.
It may be a relic, it may even be a rip off, but maybe we just have to accept it’s here to stay.
China Free Trade Agreement Speech by Russel Norman (sorry bout the formatting)
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
China FTA Third Reading Speech - Dr Russel Norman MP
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader-Green) :
This trade agreement between NewZealand and China fails to protect the sovereignty of the democratically elected Government of New Zealand, and it placessignificant restrictions on the future ability of the New Zealand Governmentand Parliament to pass regulations to protect the people and environment of Aotearoa New Zealand.There are many reasons why the New Zealand Government should not have signedthis preferential trade agreement with China, not least of which is the factthat New Zealand signed this agreement whileChina was involved in the murderous oppression of the people of Tibet. It isalso of grave concern that this agreement has no binding labour or environmental standards. The lower wages and standardsin China will effectively be a non-tariff barrier to fair trade, giving corporations that pollute or pay inhumane wages a competitive advantage overthose that do not.However, here I wish to focus on the investment provisions and expose the risks to our people, our environment, and our sovereignty. The investment chapter of the agreement, chapter 11, takentogether with the annex defining expropriation, annex 13, effectively formsa bilateral investment treaty between our two countries. This bilateral investment treaty inhibits the ability of the twoGovernments to regulate the businesses of foreign investors without compensating those investors for the cost of those regulations.The investment treaty means that a Chinese corporation operating in New Zealand can sue the New Zealand Government if the Government changes regulations, resulting in a loss of value for thatcorporation. And if there is a dispute between a Chinese investor and theNew Zealand Government as to whether the Government should compensate the investor, and to what extent, then the dispute is tobe resolved in an international forum established under the auspices of the World Bank or the United Nations.The effect of this investment treaty will be to place a chill over theability or willingness of the New Zealand Government and Parliament to regulate the business activities of Chinese corporationsoperating in New Zealand, for fear of facing binding claims for compensationin international tribunals. This will make it much harder for our Governmentto carry out its duty to protect and advancethe well-being of the people and environment of Aotearoa New Zealand.Bilateral investment treaties have received an increasing amount ofattention in the international law literature. This is for the simple reason that moreand more bilateral investment treaties arebeing signed, and more and more cases are ending up in international courtsor tribunals of one description or another. Corporations are suing Governments in international judicial hearings on aregular basis. In Canada, the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law has aninvestment treaty arbitration website that provides access to all publicly available investment treaty awards, and listsover 200 cases since 1996.It was long standard fare for treaties to protect corporations from expropriation; from the direct acquisition of a company by a Government without compensation. What is new is that now corporationsare successfully suing Governments for what they call "indirect expropriation". Indirect expropriation is where a Government changes laws orregulations, or acts in some way that impacts on acorporation's activities, resulting in loss of profits and hence value for that corporation. In these cases the owner's title to an asset is protected but the value of that asset declines.The New Zealand - China preferential trade deal contains two components thattogether constitute a bilateral investment treaty between New Zealand and China. Those are chapter 11 and annex 13. Thecore of chapter 11 is article 145, which, I imagine, almost none of the members of this House have read, except me. It says that the New Zealand Government cannot expropriate Chinese investors unlessthe expropriation is fully compensated, and vice versa. If there are any disputes between a Chinese investor and the New Zealand Government, the investor can seek redress at the International Centrefor Settlement of Investment Disputes or through the United NationsCommission on International Trade Law.Central to such disputes is the definition of "expropriation". Thisdefinition has been of critical importance to bilateral investment disputes overseas. There have been several cases wherearbitrators have deemed that measures taken to protect the environment have expropriated investors, and that is extremely and directly applicable tothis treaty. For example, in the case of Metalcladv Mexico, an international trade tribunal ruled that Mexico had violated theNorth American free-trade agreement in preventing Metalclad Corporation fromopening a hazardous waste treatment anddisposal site in Mexico. The tribunal found that local government oppositionto the project amounted to expropriation of the company's profits.Public protest against Metalclad's approval for the waste treatment led to local authorities investigating the potential environmental impacts of the treatment site. An environmental impactassessment revealed that the site was on top of an ecologically sensitive underground alluvial stream. As a result, the governor refused to allow Metalclad to operate the facility, and later declaredit part of an ecological zone.Metalclad claimed that this action effectively expropriated its future expected profits, and although it was awarded less than the $90 million in damages it sought, its claim was successful. Thereare more cases like this in international tribunals, and it is clear that measures taken by States to protect human health or the environment can be found by international arbitrators to beexpropriation, resulting in large financial penalties. The key question is whether State action to regulate is considered a form of indirect expropriation. The definition of expropriation is addressedin annex 13, which I cannot imagine many other people here have read. Thisis really at the core of the agreement and what it might mean for the abilityof the New Zealand Government to regulatewithout compensation.I will assess annex 13 from the perspective of its relationship to theability of a State to regulate when such regulation results in the partial loss of value to a Chinese investor's asset. Annex13 has five paragraphs. Paragraph 1 states: "An action or a series ofactions by a Party cannot constitute an expropriation unless . . . it interfereswith a property right". This is a simple testto meet. Most State actions would interfere with property investment whenthe State is trying to regulate, and it costs something. Paragraph 2(b) states that indirect expropriation occurs "when astate takes an investor's property in a manner equivalent to direct expropriation, in that it deprives the investor in substance of the use of the investor's property,". The kind of State actionwhere State regulation costs money to a corporation protecting theenvironment is exactly the kind that would be caught by paragraph 2.Paragraph 3 states: "In order to constitute indirect expropriation, the state's deprivation of the investor's property must be: (a) either severe orfor an indefinite period; and (b)disproportionate to the public purpose." Clearly, if the State was trying toregulate to protect the environment it would be permanent, and the question of whether it would be disproportionate wouldbe decided by an international panel. Whether the Government's judgment was allowed would be determined by an international disputes panel. Paragraph 4 states that if one targets a particular classof investor, one is very likely to get caught up in expropriating. That isan easy provision to meet if, for example, one targets a bunch of agricultural producers or dairy farmers and tries to cleanthem up.Paragraph 5 states-and this is probably what the Government is hoping will protect it-"such measures taken in the exercise of a state's regulatory powers as may be reasonably justified in theprotection of the public welfare, including public health, safety and the environment, shall not constitute indirect expropriation." Paragraph 5 givesthe appearance of protecting State action. Itsays that State actions to protect public welfare do not constitute indirectexpropriation. But there is an important exemption and an important qualifier. The exemption is that it does not cover thekinds of actions where any particular industry or class of investors is targeted. The qualifier is the term "reasonably justified". Even if theState action does not meet the terms of paragraph4-that is, targeting a class of investors-it must still be reasonably justified, and an international panel will decide whether the actions of theGovernment are reasonably justified. There is noteven any guidance.Once the exemption and the qualifier in paragraph 5 are included, the protection to State action looks weak. This is why Professor Matthew Porterfield from Georgetown University, an internationalexpert in trade law, said that in our agreement with China we are actually exposing ourselves to greater risk of legal action than the US Government faces under its investment clauses. So a closereading of chapter 11 and annex 13 makes it clear that any kind of NewZealand Government regulatory action that negatively affects the value of Chinese investors' assets is wide open to actionbeing taken against the New Zealand Government by the Chinese investors.Where the New Zealand Government action particularly affects a class of investors, then the Government's only defence is to show that its actions were proportionate to the public purpose intended.It will be up to an international panel to decide whether the action was proportionate, regardless of the view of the people or Government of New Zealand. Where a State action does not affect aparticular class of investors or is not in breach of a contract, then the Government has a better opportunity to win its case, but only if thetribunal agrees that the Government's action wasreasonably justified to protect public welfare. Thus, the New Zealand Government will have two lines of defence, but both of them involve convincing a non-elected, international panel that the actionsof the Government were proportionate or reasonable to achieve the public purpose desired.
China FTA Third Reading Speech - Dr Russel Norman MP
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader-Green) :
This trade agreement between NewZealand and China fails to protect the sovereignty of the democratically elected Government of New Zealand, and it placessignificant restrictions on the future ability of the New Zealand Governmentand Parliament to pass regulations to protect the people and environment of Aotearoa New Zealand.There are many reasons why the New Zealand Government should not have signedthis preferential trade agreement with China, not least of which is the factthat New Zealand signed this agreement whileChina was involved in the murderous oppression of the people of Tibet. It isalso of grave concern that this agreement has no binding labour or environmental standards. The lower wages and standardsin China will effectively be a non-tariff barrier to fair trade, giving corporations that pollute or pay inhumane wages a competitive advantage overthose that do not.However, here I wish to focus on the investment provisions and expose the risks to our people, our environment, and our sovereignty. The investment chapter of the agreement, chapter 11, takentogether with the annex defining expropriation, annex 13, effectively formsa bilateral investment treaty between our two countries. This bilateral investment treaty inhibits the ability of the twoGovernments to regulate the businesses of foreign investors without compensating those investors for the cost of those regulations.The investment treaty means that a Chinese corporation operating in New Zealand can sue the New Zealand Government if the Government changes regulations, resulting in a loss of value for thatcorporation. And if there is a dispute between a Chinese investor and theNew Zealand Government as to whether the Government should compensate the investor, and to what extent, then the dispute is tobe resolved in an international forum established under the auspices of the World Bank or the United Nations.The effect of this investment treaty will be to place a chill over theability or willingness of the New Zealand Government and Parliament to regulate the business activities of Chinese corporationsoperating in New Zealand, for fear of facing binding claims for compensationin international tribunals. This will make it much harder for our Governmentto carry out its duty to protect and advancethe well-being of the people and environment of Aotearoa New Zealand.Bilateral investment treaties have received an increasing amount ofattention in the international law literature. This is for the simple reason that moreand more bilateral investment treaties arebeing signed, and more and more cases are ending up in international courtsor tribunals of one description or another. Corporations are suing Governments in international judicial hearings on aregular basis. In Canada, the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law has aninvestment treaty arbitration website that provides access to all publicly available investment treaty awards, and listsover 200 cases since 1996.It was long standard fare for treaties to protect corporations from expropriation; from the direct acquisition of a company by a Government without compensation. What is new is that now corporationsare successfully suing Governments for what they call "indirect expropriation". Indirect expropriation is where a Government changes laws orregulations, or acts in some way that impacts on acorporation's activities, resulting in loss of profits and hence value for that corporation. In these cases the owner's title to an asset is protected but the value of that asset declines.The New Zealand - China preferential trade deal contains two components thattogether constitute a bilateral investment treaty between New Zealand and China. Those are chapter 11 and annex 13. Thecore of chapter 11 is article 145, which, I imagine, almost none of the members of this House have read, except me. It says that the New Zealand Government cannot expropriate Chinese investors unlessthe expropriation is fully compensated, and vice versa. If there are any disputes between a Chinese investor and the New Zealand Government, the investor can seek redress at the International Centrefor Settlement of Investment Disputes or through the United NationsCommission on International Trade Law.Central to such disputes is the definition of "expropriation". Thisdefinition has been of critical importance to bilateral investment disputes overseas. There have been several cases wherearbitrators have deemed that measures taken to protect the environment have expropriated investors, and that is extremely and directly applicable tothis treaty. For example, in the case of Metalcladv Mexico, an international trade tribunal ruled that Mexico had violated theNorth American free-trade agreement in preventing Metalclad Corporation fromopening a hazardous waste treatment anddisposal site in Mexico. The tribunal found that local government oppositionto the project amounted to expropriation of the company's profits.Public protest against Metalclad's approval for the waste treatment led to local authorities investigating the potential environmental impacts of the treatment site. An environmental impactassessment revealed that the site was on top of an ecologically sensitive underground alluvial stream. As a result, the governor refused to allow Metalclad to operate the facility, and later declaredit part of an ecological zone.Metalclad claimed that this action effectively expropriated its future expected profits, and although it was awarded less than the $90 million in damages it sought, its claim was successful. Thereare more cases like this in international tribunals, and it is clear that measures taken by States to protect human health or the environment can be found by international arbitrators to beexpropriation, resulting in large financial penalties. The key question is whether State action to regulate is considered a form of indirect expropriation. The definition of expropriation is addressedin annex 13, which I cannot imagine many other people here have read. Thisis really at the core of the agreement and what it might mean for the abilityof the New Zealand Government to regulatewithout compensation.I will assess annex 13 from the perspective of its relationship to theability of a State to regulate when such regulation results in the partial loss of value to a Chinese investor's asset. Annex13 has five paragraphs. Paragraph 1 states: "An action or a series ofactions by a Party cannot constitute an expropriation unless . . . it interfereswith a property right". This is a simple testto meet. Most State actions would interfere with property investment whenthe State is trying to regulate, and it costs something. Paragraph 2(b) states that indirect expropriation occurs "when astate takes an investor's property in a manner equivalent to direct expropriation, in that it deprives the investor in substance of the use of the investor's property,". The kind of State actionwhere State regulation costs money to a corporation protecting theenvironment is exactly the kind that would be caught by paragraph 2.Paragraph 3 states: "In order to constitute indirect expropriation, the state's deprivation of the investor's property must be: (a) either severe orfor an indefinite period; and (b)disproportionate to the public purpose." Clearly, if the State was trying toregulate to protect the environment it would be permanent, and the question of whether it would be disproportionate wouldbe decided by an international panel. Whether the Government's judgment was allowed would be determined by an international disputes panel. Paragraph 4 states that if one targets a particular classof investor, one is very likely to get caught up in expropriating. That isan easy provision to meet if, for example, one targets a bunch of agricultural producers or dairy farmers and tries to cleanthem up.Paragraph 5 states-and this is probably what the Government is hoping will protect it-"such measures taken in the exercise of a state's regulatory powers as may be reasonably justified in theprotection of the public welfare, including public health, safety and the environment, shall not constitute indirect expropriation." Paragraph 5 givesthe appearance of protecting State action. Itsays that State actions to protect public welfare do not constitute indirectexpropriation. But there is an important exemption and an important qualifier. The exemption is that it does not cover thekinds of actions where any particular industry or class of investors is targeted. The qualifier is the term "reasonably justified". Even if theState action does not meet the terms of paragraph4-that is, targeting a class of investors-it must still be reasonably justified, and an international panel will decide whether the actions of theGovernment are reasonably justified. There is noteven any guidance.Once the exemption and the qualifier in paragraph 5 are included, the protection to State action looks weak. This is why Professor Matthew Porterfield from Georgetown University, an internationalexpert in trade law, said that in our agreement with China we are actually exposing ourselves to greater risk of legal action than the US Government faces under its investment clauses. So a closereading of chapter 11 and annex 13 makes it clear that any kind of NewZealand Government regulatory action that negatively affects the value of Chinese investors' assets is wide open to actionbeing taken against the New Zealand Government by the Chinese investors.Where the New Zealand Government action particularly affects a class of investors, then the Government's only defence is to show that its actions were proportionate to the public purpose intended.It will be up to an international panel to decide whether the action was proportionate, regardless of the view of the people or Government of New Zealand. Where a State action does not affect aparticular class of investors or is not in breach of a contract, then the Government has a better opportunity to win its case, but only if thetribunal agrees that the Government's action wasreasonably justified to protect public welfare. Thus, the New Zealand Government will have two lines of defence, but both of them involve convincing a non-elected, international panel that the actionsof the Government were proportionate or reasonable to achieve the public purpose desired.
Metro Article on Father Peter Murnane
follow this link to find a great article written about one of the Waihopai Domebusters, Father Peter Murnane.
http://www.metrolive.co.nz/metro-archives/metro-archives-article/6610/articleid.aspx
http://www.metrolive.co.nz/metro-archives/metro-archives-article/6610/articleid.aspx
Suppressed Overseas Investment Figures
CAFCA RELEASES FIGURES SUPPRESSED BY OVERSEAS INVESTMENT OFFICE
The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) receives the monthly Decisions (i.e.approvals, plus the very rare refusals) from the Overseas Investment Office.
The OIO routinely withholds Decisions (which we appeal to the Ombudsman, sometime successfully) and it also routinely withholds details of those Decisions that it does release, usually the price paid by the foreign buyer.
However, in the latest batch of Decisions that we have analysed (January-April 2008) we have been able to calculate some of those purchase prices from the accompanying statistics supplied by the OIO.
They are:
Framingham Wines Limited was bought by Sogrape Investimentos SGPS, SA of Portugal for $13,104,500.
Retirement Care (NZ) Limited, owned by three Macquarie Bank funds, acquired aged care operator Qualcare Group Holdings Limited for $267,054,250.
NZ Poultry Enterprises Limited, owned by private equity investor PEP, acquired NZ Poultry Holdings Limited (owner of Tegel chicken) for $563,029,750.
EnviroWaste, owned by private equity corporation, Ironbridge through Barra Topco II Ltd, bought the 50% of Manawatu Waste it did not already own, and Ironbridge bought the shares it did not already own in Barra Topco II Ltd, for a combined total of $37,590,000.
The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) receives the monthly Decisions (i.e.approvals, plus the very rare refusals) from the Overseas Investment Office.
The OIO routinely withholds Decisions (which we appeal to the Ombudsman, sometime successfully) and it also routinely withholds details of those Decisions that it does release, usually the price paid by the foreign buyer.
However, in the latest batch of Decisions that we have analysed (January-April 2008) we have been able to calculate some of those purchase prices from the accompanying statistics supplied by the OIO.
They are:
Framingham Wines Limited was bought by Sogrape Investimentos SGPS, SA of Portugal for $13,104,500.
Retirement Care (NZ) Limited, owned by three Macquarie Bank funds, acquired aged care operator Qualcare Group Holdings Limited for $267,054,250.
NZ Poultry Enterprises Limited, owned by private equity investor PEP, acquired NZ Poultry Holdings Limited (owner of Tegel chicken) for $563,029,750.
EnviroWaste, owned by private equity corporation, Ironbridge through Barra Topco II Ltd, bought the 50% of Manawatu Waste it did not already own, and Ironbridge bought the shares it did not already own in Barra Topco II Ltd, for a combined total of $37,590,000.
Cora Fabros article in Marlbrough Express
This article appeared in the Marlborough Express during Cora's tour.
Spy base data use violates sovereignty, says activist
Information gleaned by the Waihopai Valley spy base is giving the United States an unfair economic advantage, says a visiting veteran activist from the Philippines.
Cora Fabros is the Asia/ Pacific Coordinator of the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases and was in Blenheim yesterday.
She is in New Zealand as a guest of the Anti-Bases Campaign and is visiting spy bases around the country. She is also speaking about the regional and global perspective on such bases.
The Waihopai base attracted international attention on April 30 when three sickle-wielding protesters broke onto the site and deflated one of the large inflatable domes covering a radar dish.
Yesterday the base was taking no chance with security. There were three police cars inside the gate, but they pulled away when Mrs Fabros arrived. Another police car was stationed further down the valley.
Police were keen to find out if the media, who were invited to the visit, were expecting more action.
But it was just Mrs Fabros and veteran ABC member Bob Leonard who pulled up in a rented car to spend a few minutes in front of the gates.
Mr Leonard said he was hoping to take Mrs Fabros up to the inner gate, but was told by the base that in light of April's attack public access was now curtailed.
Mrs Fabros described April's attack as a "very creative" way of bringing attention to the facility.
"I really admire the courage of our friends who did this."
She said Waihopai was part of a network for the operation of military bases collecting data and information.
The base was spying on the communications of the Pacific Islands and the information was part of the pool of data used by the US.
"That to me is very deceptive and a violation of the sovereignty of independent nations.
"We are well aware of economic policies that are adopted by certain governments or policies imposed by the US on to another nation that give the US an undue advantage over an independent country because they are able to get this information without permission."
She said New Zealand, which prided itself on being nuclear free and playing a peacemaker role in the world, was providing support for the US military infrastructure.
"We are fighting a global superpower and we feel we need to highlight the issue, no matter how local people here think that it's a foreign issue. I continue to learn more about it and it's not a foreign issue."
Spy base data use violates sovereignty, says activist
Information gleaned by the Waihopai Valley spy base is giving the United States an unfair economic advantage, says a visiting veteran activist from the Philippines.
Cora Fabros is the Asia/ Pacific Coordinator of the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases and was in Blenheim yesterday.
She is in New Zealand as a guest of the Anti-Bases Campaign and is visiting spy bases around the country. She is also speaking about the regional and global perspective on such bases.
The Waihopai base attracted international attention on April 30 when three sickle-wielding protesters broke onto the site and deflated one of the large inflatable domes covering a radar dish.
Yesterday the base was taking no chance with security. There were three police cars inside the gate, but they pulled away when Mrs Fabros arrived. Another police car was stationed further down the valley.
Police were keen to find out if the media, who were invited to the visit, were expecting more action.
But it was just Mrs Fabros and veteran ABC member Bob Leonard who pulled up in a rented car to spend a few minutes in front of the gates.
Mr Leonard said he was hoping to take Mrs Fabros up to the inner gate, but was told by the base that in light of April's attack public access was now curtailed.
Mrs Fabros described April's attack as a "very creative" way of bringing attention to the facility.
"I really admire the courage of our friends who did this."
She said Waihopai was part of a network for the operation of military bases collecting data and information.
The base was spying on the communications of the Pacific Islands and the information was part of the pool of data used by the US.
"That to me is very deceptive and a violation of the sovereignty of independent nations.
"We are well aware of economic policies that are adopted by certain governments or policies imposed by the US on to another nation that give the US an undue advantage over an independent country because they are able to get this information without permission."
She said New Zealand, which prided itself on being nuclear free and playing a peacemaker role in the world, was providing support for the US military infrastructure.
"We are fighting a global superpower and we feel we need to highlight the issue, no matter how local people here think that it's a foreign issue. I continue to learn more about it and it's not a foreign issue."
Cora Fabros appears in the Otago Daily Times
Below is an article that appeared in the Otago Daily Times during Cora Fobros' tour of New Zealand. Further details of her visit can be seen on earlier posts.
Activist speaks against spy bases
By Sam Stevens
Created 09/07/2008 - 06:00
International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases (Asia-Pacific) co-ordinator Cora Fabros was in Dunedin yesterday to talk about the impact of foreign military bases on indigenous people. Photo by Peter McIntosh. While international espionage is often associated with hi-tech gadgets and fast cars, the reality is far less glamorous, says a Filipino activist, who began a national speaking tour in Dunedin yesterday.
At Dunedin Community House last night International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases Asia Pacific co-ordinator Cora Fabros spoke about the impact of military bases, specifically those maintained by the United States, on indigenous peoples world-wide.
Ms Fabros also discussed facilities in this country, such as the Waihopai "spy-base" in Marlborough, and those at Tangimoana, near Palmerston North, and Harewood, Christchurch.
"It's a fringe issue in New Zealand and I hope the trip will provide a global and regional context, which might motivate people to take an interest in these activities," she said.
The operation of two large US military facilities in the Philippines for almost 100 years galvanised her opposition to foreign bases.
For many, the bases, which could accommodate up to 100,000 personnel, represented a virtual "occupation" by foreign powers and were symbolic of a loss of sovereignty, she said.
However, for some Filipinos the "fall-out" from facilities is more tangible.
Near a decommissioned base in Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, residents had been affected by pollution from asbestos and defoliant chemicals.
Apart from respiratory illness, there was a high incidence of cancer in women and miscarriage, she said.
"When the bases closed about 15 years ago, negotiations did not really look at a clean-up plan. We regret that now."
Military expansion often meant funds were being diverted from core infrastructure in developing nations, she said.
Her seminars will be held in Blenheim, Wellington, Palmerston North and Auckland this month.
Activist speaks against spy bases
By Sam Stevens
Created 09/07/2008 - 06:00
International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases (Asia-Pacific) co-ordinator Cora Fabros was in Dunedin yesterday to talk about the impact of foreign military bases on indigenous people. Photo by Peter McIntosh. While international espionage is often associated with hi-tech gadgets and fast cars, the reality is far less glamorous, says a Filipino activist, who began a national speaking tour in Dunedin yesterday.
At Dunedin Community House last night International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases Asia Pacific co-ordinator Cora Fabros spoke about the impact of military bases, specifically those maintained by the United States, on indigenous peoples world-wide.
Ms Fabros also discussed facilities in this country, such as the Waihopai "spy-base" in Marlborough, and those at Tangimoana, near Palmerston North, and Harewood, Christchurch.
"It's a fringe issue in New Zealand and I hope the trip will provide a global and regional context, which might motivate people to take an interest in these activities," she said.
The operation of two large US military facilities in the Philippines for almost 100 years galvanised her opposition to foreign bases.
For many, the bases, which could accommodate up to 100,000 personnel, represented a virtual "occupation" by foreign powers and were symbolic of a loss of sovereignty, she said.
However, for some Filipinos the "fall-out" from facilities is more tangible.
Near a decommissioned base in Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, residents had been affected by pollution from asbestos and defoliant chemicals.
Apart from respiratory illness, there was a high incidence of cancer in women and miscarriage, she said.
"When the bases closed about 15 years ago, negotiations did not really look at a clean-up plan. We regret that now."
Military expansion often meant funds were being diverted from core infrastructure in developing nations, she said.
Her seminars will be held in Blenheim, Wellington, Palmerston North and Auckland this month.
John Minto's blog
Long time CAFCA and ABC supporter and veteran activist John Minto now has his own blog - and has done for some time!
Have a read and make some comments
it can be found here
http://www.stuff.co.nz//blogs/frontline/2008/
Have a read and make some comments
it can be found here
http://www.stuff.co.nz//blogs/frontline/2008/
my goodness it has been awhile!
Enormous apologies for the lack of blogging. An absence from the blog since the 4th of July in inexcusable. So there's the apology over. Rest assured there are many decent reason (and several far fetched excuses) for the absence.
So here we go. We're a week out from finding out who is going to win both the American and the local National election. As a distraction from the propaganda being thrust from almost every direction, I shall exercise my democratic right to blog the last five months of issues that concern foreign ownership of Aotearoa.
Hope you enjoy - 2009 I promise will bring more up-to-date updates :-)
So here we go. We're a week out from finding out who is going to win both the American and the local National election. As a distraction from the propaganda being thrust from almost every direction, I shall exercise my democratic right to blog the last five months of issues that concern foreign ownership of Aotearoa.
Hope you enjoy - 2009 I promise will bring more up-to-date updates :-)
03 July 2008
Stuff article on the Postcard debacle
By MAGGIE TAIT - NZPA Thursday, 03 July 2008
Postcards highlight law problems - Nats
National deputy leader Bill English says an anti-privatisation postcard campaign has been orchestrated to avoid breaching the Electoral Finance Act but may still do so.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca) emailed out a postcard to be sent to MPs saying they did not want education, health or transport privatised. It gave details of how to make bulk orders for hard copies.
Cafca did not put their details on the card and did not think they needed to under Electoral Finance Act requirements.
The law requires advertisements to have an authoriser's name and address and sets limits for how much can be spent on campaign advertising.
Cafca organiser Murray Horton said there was no need to put the organisation's details on the card as the people who sent them to MPs gave their names, addresses and phone numbers.
Mr English said Cafca had a right to express its views but appeared to be carefully designing its campaign to avoid running into legal problems.
"Unfortunately the Electoral Finance Act appears to have driven this kind of campaigning underground. It may breach the Act it may not, some expert will have to take a look at it," he said.
"It does look a bit like a coordinated campaign with the Government's attacks on the same issues – that too may raise some legal issues about whether Labour have some role in being responsible for it."
Mr Horton said Labour nor the Green Party had any involvement. Mr English said that was something that could be tested in the courts.
He said Labour may not have anything to do with the campaign but could find it charged against its campaign spending cap if the postcards were judged to be an advertisement.
"It's interesting that the people who supported the Act as a way of stopping political campaigns are going to find that it's a constraint."
Mr English said people who ordered the postcards, for instance unions, could run into trouble.
"They need to get legal advice because its quite possible if they are handing out the cards they do count as an election advertisement and they may have to count them against Labour's campaign funding. "All of this is ridiculous. We should be free to express any opinion we like in an election year because that's the time when our opinion might matter."
Mr Horton said the card was not aimed at any specific party.
"It doesn't say anywhere on the card `do vote for or don't vote for' . . . it simply says `I'm not going to vote for a party that advocates (privatisation)' . . .
"I can understand why National is feeling sensitive about it right now, but these things have been going out for a couple of weeks."
National's position on opening ACC up to competition was highlighted yesterday.
Mr Horton said the postcard could easily be sent to Labour MPs over public private partnerships, for instance in relation to Auckland roading projects.
Rail and Maritime Transport Union and Maritime Union of New Zealand had ordered postcards.
An Electoral Commission spokesman said it had not received a complaint. However, the postcards would not count as being published under the Electoral Finance Act if they were sent to membership or people the group knew.
An example of when they would be considered published would be if they were handed out on the street.
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said she could see no problem with the postcards.
"I don't see that there's anything wrong with sending a party a postcard saying `we don't like what you are doing'. That happens to us, that happens to all parties," she said.
The Greens were the subject of an anonymous campaign before the last election.
"I don't see any parallel, the Exclusive Brethren distributed information to the public which was inaccurate about Green Party policy and didn't say who they were.
"This is a postcard to the National Party, not to the public, signed by individuals and not making claims about them but saying `we don't want privatisation'. I see it as totally different."
Postcards highlight law problems - Nats
National deputy leader Bill English says an anti-privatisation postcard campaign has been orchestrated to avoid breaching the Electoral Finance Act but may still do so.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca) emailed out a postcard to be sent to MPs saying they did not want education, health or transport privatised. It gave details of how to make bulk orders for hard copies.
Cafca did not put their details on the card and did not think they needed to under Electoral Finance Act requirements.
The law requires advertisements to have an authoriser's name and address and sets limits for how much can be spent on campaign advertising.
Cafca organiser Murray Horton said there was no need to put the organisation's details on the card as the people who sent them to MPs gave their names, addresses and phone numbers.
Mr English said Cafca had a right to express its views but appeared to be carefully designing its campaign to avoid running into legal problems.
"Unfortunately the Electoral Finance Act appears to have driven this kind of campaigning underground. It may breach the Act it may not, some expert will have to take a look at it," he said.
"It does look a bit like a coordinated campaign with the Government's attacks on the same issues – that too may raise some legal issues about whether Labour have some role in being responsible for it."
Mr Horton said Labour nor the Green Party had any involvement. Mr English said that was something that could be tested in the courts.
He said Labour may not have anything to do with the campaign but could find it charged against its campaign spending cap if the postcards were judged to be an advertisement.
"It's interesting that the people who supported the Act as a way of stopping political campaigns are going to find that it's a constraint."
Mr English said people who ordered the postcards, for instance unions, could run into trouble.
"They need to get legal advice because its quite possible if they are handing out the cards they do count as an election advertisement and they may have to count them against Labour's campaign funding. "All of this is ridiculous. We should be free to express any opinion we like in an election year because that's the time when our opinion might matter."
Mr Horton said the card was not aimed at any specific party.
"It doesn't say anywhere on the card `do vote for or don't vote for' . . . it simply says `I'm not going to vote for a party that advocates (privatisation)' . . .
"I can understand why National is feeling sensitive about it right now, but these things have been going out for a couple of weeks."
National's position on opening ACC up to competition was highlighted yesterday.
Mr Horton said the postcard could easily be sent to Labour MPs over public private partnerships, for instance in relation to Auckland roading projects.
Rail and Maritime Transport Union and Maritime Union of New Zealand had ordered postcards.
An Electoral Commission spokesman said it had not received a complaint. However, the postcards would not count as being published under the Electoral Finance Act if they were sent to membership or people the group knew.
An example of when they would be considered published would be if they were handed out on the street.
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said she could see no problem with the postcards.
"I don't see that there's anything wrong with sending a party a postcard saying `we don't like what you are doing'. That happens to us, that happens to all parties," she said.
The Greens were the subject of an anonymous campaign before the last election.
"I don't see any parallel, the Exclusive Brethren distributed information to the public which was inaccurate about Green Party policy and didn't say who they were.
"This is a postcard to the National Party, not to the public, signed by individuals and not making claims about them but saying `we don't want privatisation'. I see it as totally different."
CAFCA press release re: Anti-privatisation Postcards
POSTCARDS PUT ALL POLITICIANS ON NOTICE ABOUT PRIVATISATION
We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when told that Bill English had claimed that our unassuming little anti-privatisation postcards are part of a “covert campaign” by Labour and the Greens and apparently on a par with the infamous Exclusive Brethren campaign in the 2005 election.
Sorry to spoil a good story, Bill, but there’s no covert campaign, no conspiracy and no secret. CAFCA produced the cards, offering them to our members and supporters. They are not leaflets or any other kind of “electioneering” material. They constitute a letter sent by an individual whose name and address appears on the card – that person is the sender, with nothing remotely “covert” about it.
They are not aimed against any particular political party, and they’re certainly not from any political party. CAFCA is not a party and is not affiliated to any – we reserve the right to criticise all of them, and do so.
The cards are to be sent to MPs and candidates from any party simply stating that the named sender will not vote for a candidate or party which advocates full or partial privatisation of public assets. They can be as equally sent to Labour MPs and candidates supporting Private Public Partnerships for Auckland’s mega roading project as they can to National MPs and candidates supporting “opening ACC to competition”. And on that latter point, which has obviously led to National’s suspicions of a conspiracy, the timing is purely coincidental – our cards have been in circulation for weeks.
Obviously National is feeling guilty, having been outed about their plans for ACC and so they should be – the last time they “opened it up to competition” it was a shambles (as a self-employed worker, I remember it well). The insurance transnationals are rubbing their hands with glee at the rich pickings to be gained and, for the left overs that the big boys can’t be bothered with, every crook and his dog will be touting snake oil. Been there, done that, why fix it if it ain’t busted? Oh, I forgot, there are mega profits to be made by “fixing” it.
Obviously Bill English cannot conceive of such an initiative coming from outside the tiny self-obsessed world of what the media refer to as “the Beltway” (where is that exactly in the Wellington context? Lambton Quay?). These cards represent ordinary, grassroots Kiwis saying to politicians of all parties:” We will not vote for any going back to the failed policy of privatisation which has caused such enormous damage to the economy and community over the past couple of decades. Hands off our assets”.
We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when told that Bill English had claimed that our unassuming little anti-privatisation postcards are part of a “covert campaign” by Labour and the Greens and apparently on a par with the infamous Exclusive Brethren campaign in the 2005 election.
Sorry to spoil a good story, Bill, but there’s no covert campaign, no conspiracy and no secret. CAFCA produced the cards, offering them to our members and supporters. They are not leaflets or any other kind of “electioneering” material. They constitute a letter sent by an individual whose name and address appears on the card – that person is the sender, with nothing remotely “covert” about it.
They are not aimed against any particular political party, and they’re certainly not from any political party. CAFCA is not a party and is not affiliated to any – we reserve the right to criticise all of them, and do so.
The cards are to be sent to MPs and candidates from any party simply stating that the named sender will not vote for a candidate or party which advocates full or partial privatisation of public assets. They can be as equally sent to Labour MPs and candidates supporting Private Public Partnerships for Auckland’s mega roading project as they can to National MPs and candidates supporting “opening ACC to competition”. And on that latter point, which has obviously led to National’s suspicions of a conspiracy, the timing is purely coincidental – our cards have been in circulation for weeks.
Obviously National is feeling guilty, having been outed about their plans for ACC and so they should be – the last time they “opened it up to competition” it was a shambles (as a self-employed worker, I remember it well). The insurance transnationals are rubbing their hands with glee at the rich pickings to be gained and, for the left overs that the big boys can’t be bothered with, every crook and his dog will be touting snake oil. Been there, done that, why fix it if it ain’t busted? Oh, I forgot, there are mega profits to be made by “fixing” it.
Obviously Bill English cannot conceive of such an initiative coming from outside the tiny self-obsessed world of what the media refer to as “the Beltway” (where is that exactly in the Wellington context? Lambton Quay?). These cards represent ordinary, grassroots Kiwis saying to politicians of all parties:” We will not vote for any going back to the failed policy of privatisation which has caused such enormous damage to the economy and community over the past couple of decades. Hands off our assets”.
The NOW Famous Postcard
Well! It all went off yesterday when National Party decided to announce that CAFCA's anti-privatisation postcard was in breach of the Electoral Finance Act. To refresh your memories this is what the postcard was all about:
Privatisation is a major issue in this election. Though National promises no asset sales in its first term in office, it is already promising to privatise ACC by introducing commercial competition, even though research shows that publicly owned ACC is one of the cheapest such schemes, with one of the best range of benefits, in the world. Labour, while deserving credit for undoing some of the disastrous privatisations of the past, is toying with "Public-Private Partnerships" in the proposed huge Waterview roading development in Auckland.What do the other parties and candidates intend?
CAFCA has created postcards that supporters and members can send to any MP (post free) or to any election candidate to state your opposition to privatisation in all its forms. The wording of the cards is below. These are for you or friends to sign and post; the card will be you stating your views on this important issue to the people (from any political party) who want to be your political representatives. If you don't like the wording of the cards and oppose privatisation, we urge you to write in your own words to your MPs and would-be representatives.
If you would like to have some postcards, email or write to us at the address below. We ask for a koha to help cover costs. If you want large numbers, we will let you know what the costs will be.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)
PO Box 2258
Christchurch
Aotearoa/New Zealand
email: cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
If you want to read more about the perils of privatisation, see some of the presentations from the Privatisation by Stealth conference we ran in March, and other material on this web site.
The postcards state:
Dear ....................,
I don’t want my school run by a private equity corporation.
I don’t want my airport owned by a foreign pension fund.
I don’t want my hospital managed by an insurance company.
I don’t want my port or railways owned by a transnational corporation.
I don’t want my roads operated by an investment bank.
I believe that continued full public New Zealand ownership and control of New Zealand public assets and infrastructure is extremely important.
I will not be voting for any candidate or party who supports full or partial privatisation of our public assets and infrastructure.
Signature: ................................................................................
Date:
Name: ............................................................................................ Address:.........................................................................................
Privatisation is a major issue in this election. Though National promises no asset sales in its first term in office, it is already promising to privatise ACC by introducing commercial competition, even though research shows that publicly owned ACC is one of the cheapest such schemes, with one of the best range of benefits, in the world. Labour, while deserving credit for undoing some of the disastrous privatisations of the past, is toying with "Public-Private Partnerships" in the proposed huge Waterview roading development in Auckland.What do the other parties and candidates intend?
CAFCA has created postcards that supporters and members can send to any MP (post free) or to any election candidate to state your opposition to privatisation in all its forms. The wording of the cards is below. These are for you or friends to sign and post; the card will be you stating your views on this important issue to the people (from any political party) who want to be your political representatives. If you don't like the wording of the cards and oppose privatisation, we urge you to write in your own words to your MPs and would-be representatives.
If you would like to have some postcards, email or write to us at the address below. We ask for a koha to help cover costs. If you want large numbers, we will let you know what the costs will be.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)
PO Box 2258
Christchurch
Aotearoa/New Zealand
email: cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
If you want to read more about the perils of privatisation, see some of the presentations from the Privatisation by Stealth conference we ran in March, and other material on this web site.
The postcards state:
Dear ....................,
I don’t want my school run by a private equity corporation.
I don’t want my airport owned by a foreign pension fund.
I don’t want my hospital managed by an insurance company.
I don’t want my port or railways owned by a transnational corporation.
I don’t want my roads operated by an investment bank.
I believe that continued full public New Zealand ownership and control of New Zealand public assets and infrastructure is extremely important.
I will not be voting for any candidate or party who supports full or partial privatisation of our public assets and infrastructure.
Signature: ................................................................................
Date:
Name: ............................................................................................ Address:.........................................................................................
23 June 2008
Introducing Roger - get your nominations in for 2008
The Roger Award
The Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation operating in New Zealand has run annually since 1997. There are no prizes for guessing whom it is named after. It is organised by CAFCA and GATT Watchdog, both Christchurch-based groups, who rotate the annual organisation.
Nominations for the 2008 award are now open. The nomination form, which includes criteria and details of how to make a nomination, is available here in Word (52 KB) or PDF format (65KB).
You may have noticed that New Zealand has a general election this year. For election year only, there is a new Meddler’s Award for the transnational corporation which, judged on the same criteria as for the Roger Award itself, has the most negative impact on the direction or electoral process of the election campaign.
The judges for 2008 are: Geoff Bertram, from Wellington, a Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, from Christchurch, President of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, from Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union; Cee Payne-Harker, from Dunedin, Industrial Services Manager for the NZ Nurses' Organisation and health issues activist; Christine Dann, from Banks Peninsula, a writer and researcher; and Bryan Gould, from Bay of Plenty, a former Waikato University Vice-Chancellor. They will be given a shortlist of finalists. The winner(s) will be announced at an Auckland event in early 2009.
Criteria and details of previous winners are below.
The winner of the 2007 award was announced in March 2008. Read the media release by the organisers announcing the winner and the Judges' Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner.
See also the speech given by Murray Horton of CAFCA for the organisers of the event.
The finalists were Telecom, Spotless, Pike River Coal, ANZ, British American Tobacco (BAT), Independent Liquor, APN News & Media (ANM), and GlaxoSmithKline.
New for 2007 was an Accomplice Award. It was won by the Whanganui DHB.
The winners of all awards since its inauguration in 1997 are:
Telecom (2007)
Progressive Enterprises (2006)
Bank of New Zealand and Westpac (2005)
Telecom (2004)
Juken Nissho (2003)
Tranz Rail (2002)
Carter Holt Harvey (2001)
Tranz Rail (2000)
TransAlta (1999)
Monsanto (1998)
Tranz Rail (1997)
Plus the judges have awarded prizes for runners up, continuity and collaborators over the years. The Award has attracted considerable interest since its inception (even from the corporate media), and has had a succession of distinguished and completely voluntary judges. The events to announce the winners have become highly memorable in their own right.
Details of winners and judges' decisions since 2000 are below.
The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation with 25% or more foreign ownership) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:
Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism
People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism
Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals
Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade
There is also an Accomplice Award for an organisation (not an individual) which was the worst Accomplice during the year in aiding and abetting transnational corporations in New Zealand to behave as described in the criteria. The Accomplice’s award is in addition to the Worst Transnational Corporation award and will not necessarily be awarded every year.
Because Tranz Rail won three times, it was installed as the first occupant of the Hall of Shame. It thus became ineligible to be nominated again for the Roger Award. However under its new owner, Toll Holdings, the rail company is again eligible, but only for events related to the current year.
2007 Award
The 2007 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner (a 261KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2006 Award
The 2006 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner (a 152KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2005 Award
The 2005 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, Roger Report, and Financial Analysis of the winners (a 214KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2004 Award
The 2004 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement and Report, and financial analysis of Telecom (a 167KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2003 Award
The 2003 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement and Report (a 54KB PDF – Acrobat – file), which for the first time provides a financial report on the winner.
2002 Award
The 2002 award winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement (for a summary) and the Judges’ Report (a 118KB PDF – Acrobat – file) for a detailed backgrounder.
2001 Award
The 2001 award winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement (for a summary) and the Judges’ Report (a 308KB PDF – Acrobat – file) for a detailed backgrounder.
2000 Award
The 2000 Roger Award for the worst Transnational operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand – Judges’ Report . (A 58KB PDF – Acrobat – file.)
The Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation operating in New Zealand has run annually since 1997. There are no prizes for guessing whom it is named after. It is organised by CAFCA and GATT Watchdog, both Christchurch-based groups, who rotate the annual organisation.
Nominations for the 2008 award are now open. The nomination form, which includes criteria and details of how to make a nomination, is available here in Word (52 KB) or PDF format (65KB).
You may have noticed that New Zealand has a general election this year. For election year only, there is a new Meddler’s Award for the transnational corporation which, judged on the same criteria as for the Roger Award itself, has the most negative impact on the direction or electoral process of the election campaign.
The judges for 2008 are: Geoff Bertram, from Wellington, a Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, from Christchurch, President of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, from Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union; Cee Payne-Harker, from Dunedin, Industrial Services Manager for the NZ Nurses' Organisation and health issues activist; Christine Dann, from Banks Peninsula, a writer and researcher; and Bryan Gould, from Bay of Plenty, a former Waikato University Vice-Chancellor. They will be given a shortlist of finalists. The winner(s) will be announced at an Auckland event in early 2009.
Criteria and details of previous winners are below.
The winner of the 2007 award was announced in March 2008. Read the media release by the organisers announcing the winner and the Judges' Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner.
See also the speech given by Murray Horton of CAFCA for the organisers of the event.
The finalists were Telecom, Spotless, Pike River Coal, ANZ, British American Tobacco (BAT), Independent Liquor, APN News & Media (ANM), and GlaxoSmithKline.
New for 2007 was an Accomplice Award. It was won by the Whanganui DHB.
The winners of all awards since its inauguration in 1997 are:
Telecom (2007)
Progressive Enterprises (2006)
Bank of New Zealand and Westpac (2005)
Telecom (2004)
Juken Nissho (2003)
Tranz Rail (2002)
Carter Holt Harvey (2001)
Tranz Rail (2000)
TransAlta (1999)
Monsanto (1998)
Tranz Rail (1997)
Plus the judges have awarded prizes for runners up, continuity and collaborators over the years. The Award has attracted considerable interest since its inception (even from the corporate media), and has had a succession of distinguished and completely voluntary judges. The events to announce the winners have become highly memorable in their own right.
Details of winners and judges' decisions since 2000 are below.
The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation with 25% or more foreign ownership) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:
Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism
People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism
Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals
Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade
There is also an Accomplice Award for an organisation (not an individual) which was the worst Accomplice during the year in aiding and abetting transnational corporations in New Zealand to behave as described in the criteria. The Accomplice’s award is in addition to the Worst Transnational Corporation award and will not necessarily be awarded every year.
Because Tranz Rail won three times, it was installed as the first occupant of the Hall of Shame. It thus became ineligible to be nominated again for the Roger Award. However under its new owner, Toll Holdings, the rail company is again eligible, but only for events related to the current year.
2007 Award
The 2007 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner (a 261KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2006 Award
The 2006 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, report and financial analysis of the winner (a 152KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2005 Award
The 2005 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement, Roger Report, and Financial Analysis of the winners (a 214KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2004 Award
The 2004 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement and Report, and financial analysis of Telecom (a 167KB PDF – Acrobat – file).
2003 Award
The 2003 winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement and Report (a 54KB PDF – Acrobat – file), which for the first time provides a financial report on the winner.
2002 Award
The 2002 award winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement (for a summary) and the Judges’ Report (a 118KB PDF – Acrobat – file) for a detailed backgrounder.
2001 Award
The 2001 award winners are detailed in the Judges’ Statement (for a summary) and the Judges’ Report (a 308KB PDF – Acrobat – file) for a detailed backgrounder.
2000 Award
The 2000 Roger Award for the worst Transnational operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand – Judges’ Report . (A 58KB PDF – Acrobat – file.)
Anti-Privatisation Postcard Available From CAFCA
Well it is election year and CAFCA have a Postcard you can order and send to candidates.
Privatisation, either full or partial, of public-owned assets is something that New Zealanders have learned to be very wary of indeed in the past two decades. And privatisation is rearing its ugly head again in 2008.
For details, see http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/index.html#Privatisation where you will find some of the papers from the March 2008 Privatisation By Stealth Conference in Christchurch, organised by CAFCA.
We believe that all the politicians running in this year’s election, whether sitting MPs or those wishing to join them, need to be told in no uncertain terms that the people of New Zealand do not want any more privatisation, in any of its myriad forms.
To this end we have produced a brief and to the point postcard (the text is below), which can be sent free of charge to any or all MPs. And/or it can be sent, with a stamp, to other candidates.
Please help us to distribute this postcard by replying to this e-mail and ordering some. Include your postal address
Because of the printing processes involved, it is not practicable for us to supply you with one postcard. If you’re already a CAFCA member, you will receive one of each card (i.e. one for an MP and one for another candidate) with your August Foreign Control Watchdog.
So, what we’re looking for here are bulk orders. Minimum order is 10 of each card.
If you order hundreds (or thousands), we expect a koha to help with the costs of printing and postage.
Let’s get these cards rolling!
Privatisation, either full or partial, of public-owned assets is something that New Zealanders have learned to be very wary of indeed in the past two decades. And privatisation is rearing its ugly head again in 2008.
For details, see http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/index.html#Privatisation where you will find some of the papers from the March 2008 Privatisation By Stealth Conference in Christchurch, organised by CAFCA.
We believe that all the politicians running in this year’s election, whether sitting MPs or those wishing to join them, need to be told in no uncertain terms that the people of New Zealand do not want any more privatisation, in any of its myriad forms.
To this end we have produced a brief and to the point postcard (the text is below), which can be sent free of charge to any or all MPs. And/or it can be sent, with a stamp, to other candidates.
Please help us to distribute this postcard by replying to this e-mail and ordering some. Include your postal address
Because of the printing processes involved, it is not practicable for us to supply you with one postcard. If you’re already a CAFCA member, you will receive one of each card (i.e. one for an MP and one for another candidate) with your August Foreign Control Watchdog.
So, what we’re looking for here are bulk orders. Minimum order is 10 of each card.
If you order hundreds (or thousands), we expect a koha to help with the costs of printing and postage.
Let’s get these cards rolling!
Vietnam - who else deserved an apology?
Murray had this to say about being contacted by media during the big apology to soldiers who fought in Vietnam.
I must say that I was bemused to be rung up to comment on this subject, not only by the Herald (see below) but also by Radio NZ for today’s Morning Report. It’s been many decades since I’ve been asked to comment about the Vietnam War. The Herald journalist wasn’t too sure of where I’d fitted into things – he asked me how many big Queen St anti-war marches I’d been on. I explained that as I’ve always lived in Christchurch the answer was none. I was even more bemused to be told by the Radio NZ reporter that she had been directed to me by former ACT MP Deborah Coddington (whom I’ve never met nor had any contact with). I told the reporter that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Don’t ask me what the connection is, I have no idea.
Both CAFCINZ (now CAFCA) and ABC grew out of that anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s, so this is part of our organisational (and individual) history).
Murray
NZ Herald Online 29/5/08
Now say sorry to Vietnam say anti-war protesters
5:00AM Thursday May 29, 2008By Edward Gay
Vietnam war protesters have welcomed an apology to veterans but say the Government should also apologise to the people of Vietnam.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said he did not protest against the veterans but the Government that sent New Zealanders to fight in the war.
"What's been so painful for those soldiers is that they did their duty for the country and they've really been treated extremely badly by successive Governments in terms of the sickness that they picked up while serving there," Mr Shadbolt said. He said the Government's apology was a good thing for New Zealand and will "help heal the wounds".
"It will recognise the terrible ecological tragedy that so many went through that, at the time, neither the protesters or the soldiers were aware of."
Mr Shadbolt said the Vietnamese people also had deformed children and an apology should be made to them also.
He was at the early protests where only 50 to 100 people would show up and said it was not until 1971 that 35,000 took to the streets.
It was the television which "beamed horror stories into our living rooms every night" that swelled the protesters' numbers. "I'm sure if Gallipoli was on the news every night, or Passchendaele, the protests would have been far bigger than anything we ever staged," Mr Shadbolt said.
Another protester, Murray Horton, is now the spokesman for Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa. He said he was involved in the Progressive Youth Movement which, for three years in a row, laid a wreath at the war memorial on Anzac Day commemorating women and children killed by "fascism in Vietnam". The wreath included a poster of dead women and children, killed during the My Lai massacre.
He said the veterans deserved all the help they could get after being "sprayed with Agent Orange".
"I don't bear any grudges against New Zealand's Vietnam veterans. I ended up working with them," Mr Horton said, referring to his time as a railway worker after the war.
"There is a huge responsibility on the countries, including New Zealand, that were involved in spraying Vietnam with the stuff. It was appalling. I understand hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Vietnamese were adversely affected by genetic defects and God knows what else."
Geoff Chapple, also a protester, said the effects of Agent Orange and other chemicals had been covered up and veterans deserved an apology.
"And there should be an apology to the Vietnamese for an American foreign policy which was pretty simplistic," Mr Chapple said.
He said the apology should come from the US Government.
I must say that I was bemused to be rung up to comment on this subject, not only by the Herald (see below) but also by Radio NZ for today’s Morning Report. It’s been many decades since I’ve been asked to comment about the Vietnam War. The Herald journalist wasn’t too sure of where I’d fitted into things – he asked me how many big Queen St anti-war marches I’d been on. I explained that as I’ve always lived in Christchurch the answer was none. I was even more bemused to be told by the Radio NZ reporter that she had been directed to me by former ACT MP Deborah Coddington (whom I’ve never met nor had any contact with). I told the reporter that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Don’t ask me what the connection is, I have no idea.
Both CAFCINZ (now CAFCA) and ABC grew out of that anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s, so this is part of our organisational (and individual) history).
Murray
NZ Herald Online 29/5/08
Now say sorry to Vietnam say anti-war protesters
5:00AM Thursday May 29, 2008By Edward Gay
Vietnam war protesters have welcomed an apology to veterans but say the Government should also apologise to the people of Vietnam.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said he did not protest against the veterans but the Government that sent New Zealanders to fight in the war.
"What's been so painful for those soldiers is that they did their duty for the country and they've really been treated extremely badly by successive Governments in terms of the sickness that they picked up while serving there," Mr Shadbolt said. He said the Government's apology was a good thing for New Zealand and will "help heal the wounds".
"It will recognise the terrible ecological tragedy that so many went through that, at the time, neither the protesters or the soldiers were aware of."
Mr Shadbolt said the Vietnamese people also had deformed children and an apology should be made to them also.
He was at the early protests where only 50 to 100 people would show up and said it was not until 1971 that 35,000 took to the streets.
It was the television which "beamed horror stories into our living rooms every night" that swelled the protesters' numbers. "I'm sure if Gallipoli was on the news every night, or Passchendaele, the protests would have been far bigger than anything we ever staged," Mr Shadbolt said.
Another protester, Murray Horton, is now the spokesman for Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa. He said he was involved in the Progressive Youth Movement which, for three years in a row, laid a wreath at the war memorial on Anzac Day commemorating women and children killed by "fascism in Vietnam". The wreath included a poster of dead women and children, killed during the My Lai massacre.
He said the veterans deserved all the help they could get after being "sprayed with Agent Orange".
"I don't bear any grudges against New Zealand's Vietnam veterans. I ended up working with them," Mr Horton said, referring to his time as a railway worker after the war.
"There is a huge responsibility on the countries, including New Zealand, that were involved in spraying Vietnam with the stuff. It was appalling. I understand hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Vietnamese were adversely affected by genetic defects and God knows what else."
Geoff Chapple, also a protester, said the effects of Agent Orange and other chemicals had been covered up and veterans deserved an apology.
"And there should be an apology to the Vietnamese for an American foreign policy which was pretty simplistic," Mr Chapple said.
He said the apology should come from the US Government.
The Passing of Ka Bel
The Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) joins the global outpouring of grief and sadness at the news of the tragic death of our good friend and comrade, Congressman Crispin Beltran, universally known as Ka Bel. In a life of death defying militant political activism spanning half a century, there was no greater champion of the oppressed Filipino workers and the wretched poor who comprise the great majority of that country’s people.
If there are any positives to be taken from his sudden death, they are that he lived to 75 (despite everything that that the Filipino State and a variety of serious health problems threw at him); that he died at home, a free man and a serving Congressman and from natural causes (none of which seemed likely to be his fate as recently as this time last year when he was the Philippines most high profile political prisoner, facing the prospect of life imprisonment – if he didn’t die first). He did not die as a result of brutal torture and murder, which has been the fate of so many Leftwing activists and union leaders, including Ka Lando Olalia, his immediate predecessor as head of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May First Movement trade union confederation). He was not abducted, never to be seen again, which has also been the fate of so many victims of the systematic regime of State terror.
Ka Bel was well known to many in New Zealand because of his two decades as leader of the KMU, which included indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial during the Marcos martial law dictatorship in the early 80s (he escaped and lived underground, organising workers and the poor, for a couple of years until resurfacing after Marcos had been overthrown). He was visited in detention by veteran Kiwi unionist Ken Findlay and they forged a lifelong friendship – when PSNA toured Ka Bel through NZ in 1999, it was Ken who hosted him in Wellington and drove him all round the North Island.
I’d known Ka Bel since I first went to the Philippines, in 1987. I have a vivid memory from one 80s trip of a group of Kiwi anti-bases delegates having a rip roaring night out in a Manila karaoke bar with Ka Bel and colleagues from the KMU Executive. In 1991 I and Paul Watson (of the NDU and a colleague on the PSNA Committee) were the NZ delegates to the annual KMU International Solidarity Affair. As I’ve already mentioned, PSNA hosted Ka Bel for his fortnight long NZ speaking tour in 1999 – he spent several days staying with Becky and I in our Christchurch home, plus I accompanied him to Nelson. He was an absolute pleasure to host.
And just last August Becky and I, while in Manila visiting family, had the great honour of being able to attend the official event to celebrate Ka Bel’s release from 16 months of utterly false imprisonment on trumped up charges. He was delighted to see us again and we were just glad to see him free again and so obviously in fighting spirits. Nothing frightened him – he got the biggest laugh in his typically stemwinding speech when he detailed how he’d seriously contemplated escaping by disguising himself as a doctor (because of his age and poor health, he was detained in hospital – at his own expense. PSNA raised several thousand dollars to help with the extortionate hospital bills). Sadly, that was to be the last time we will see him but he was in unforgettable form when he spoke that day and if that has to be our last memory of an old friend and comrade, it’s a great one.
People have expressed disbelief that a 75 year old would be up on the roof of his house (he died as a result of falling off it – he was up there to fix a leak). But that doesn’t surprise me. He was very much down to earth and hands on. When he stayed at our place in 99, the car decided to play up the day we had set aside to take him sightseeing. Proclaiming himself to have been a Manila taxi driver for 16 years decades ago, he plunged under the bonnet in an attempt to fix it (in the end the AA did the trick). Just as many of our discussions were about everyday practical things as they were about the high octane politics of the Philippines. He had an insatiable curiosity about all manner of things and he found both New Zealand and its people fascinating.
The Philippines has lost a great man who was a much finer leader than any of the Presidents who make it their mission to oppress, exploit, assault, abduct, torture, imprison, frame and murder workers and the poor. The world has lost one of the finest exponents of genuine grassroots activism and leadership, a man who lived what he preached, namely to be at one with the people and to serve the people. His friends and comrades in New Zealand have lost a mate, one who exemplified working class internationalism and whose courage and principled militancy made him an inspiration to all who had the privilege of knowing him.
Murray Horton
Secretary
If there are any positives to be taken from his sudden death, they are that he lived to 75 (despite everything that that the Filipino State and a variety of serious health problems threw at him); that he died at home, a free man and a serving Congressman and from natural causes (none of which seemed likely to be his fate as recently as this time last year when he was the Philippines most high profile political prisoner, facing the prospect of life imprisonment – if he didn’t die first). He did not die as a result of brutal torture and murder, which has been the fate of so many Leftwing activists and union leaders, including Ka Lando Olalia, his immediate predecessor as head of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May First Movement trade union confederation). He was not abducted, never to be seen again, which has also been the fate of so many victims of the systematic regime of State terror.
Ka Bel was well known to many in New Zealand because of his two decades as leader of the KMU, which included indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial during the Marcos martial law dictatorship in the early 80s (he escaped and lived underground, organising workers and the poor, for a couple of years until resurfacing after Marcos had been overthrown). He was visited in detention by veteran Kiwi unionist Ken Findlay and they forged a lifelong friendship – when PSNA toured Ka Bel through NZ in 1999, it was Ken who hosted him in Wellington and drove him all round the North Island.
I’d known Ka Bel since I first went to the Philippines, in 1987. I have a vivid memory from one 80s trip of a group of Kiwi anti-bases delegates having a rip roaring night out in a Manila karaoke bar with Ka Bel and colleagues from the KMU Executive. In 1991 I and Paul Watson (of the NDU and a colleague on the PSNA Committee) were the NZ delegates to the annual KMU International Solidarity Affair. As I’ve already mentioned, PSNA hosted Ka Bel for his fortnight long NZ speaking tour in 1999 – he spent several days staying with Becky and I in our Christchurch home, plus I accompanied him to Nelson. He was an absolute pleasure to host.
And just last August Becky and I, while in Manila visiting family, had the great honour of being able to attend the official event to celebrate Ka Bel’s release from 16 months of utterly false imprisonment on trumped up charges. He was delighted to see us again and we were just glad to see him free again and so obviously in fighting spirits. Nothing frightened him – he got the biggest laugh in his typically stemwinding speech when he detailed how he’d seriously contemplated escaping by disguising himself as a doctor (because of his age and poor health, he was detained in hospital – at his own expense. PSNA raised several thousand dollars to help with the extortionate hospital bills). Sadly, that was to be the last time we will see him but he was in unforgettable form when he spoke that day and if that has to be our last memory of an old friend and comrade, it’s a great one.
People have expressed disbelief that a 75 year old would be up on the roof of his house (he died as a result of falling off it – he was up there to fix a leak). But that doesn’t surprise me. He was very much down to earth and hands on. When he stayed at our place in 99, the car decided to play up the day we had set aside to take him sightseeing. Proclaiming himself to have been a Manila taxi driver for 16 years decades ago, he plunged under the bonnet in an attempt to fix it (in the end the AA did the trick). Just as many of our discussions were about everyday practical things as they were about the high octane politics of the Philippines. He had an insatiable curiosity about all manner of things and he found both New Zealand and its people fascinating.
The Philippines has lost a great man who was a much finer leader than any of the Presidents who make it their mission to oppress, exploit, assault, abduct, torture, imprison, frame and murder workers and the poor. The world has lost one of the finest exponents of genuine grassroots activism and leadership, a man who lived what he preached, namely to be at one with the people and to serve the people. His friends and comrades in New Zealand have lost a mate, one who exemplified working class internationalism and whose courage and principled militancy made him an inspiration to all who had the privilege of knowing him.
Murray Horton
Secretary
More on the Waihopai Anzac Ploughshares
the following article appeared in Tui Motu (Independent Catholic Monthly Magazine)
GOOD ON THE WAIHOPAI DOMEBUSTERS
- Murray Horton
Murray Horton is the Organiser and spokesperson for the Anti-Bases Campaign.
Peter Murnane, in the May issue, did an excellent job of establishing that the Waihopai spy base in Marlborough is a terrorist base. Of course, Peter and two other members of the Anzac Ploughshares group have since turned words into action, symbolically closing the base by deflating one of its two domes, leaving the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the Government with egg on their faces.
The Anti-Bases Campaign has been calling for Waihopai’s closure for the 21 years since it was first announced. In the first decade we adopted similar tactics, with dozens of arrests, although without such a spectacular result (the closest we got was splattering a dome as the target of a bullshit throwing contest. The raw material was freely available locally - the winner is now a Protestant clergyman). For the past decade we have opted for non-arrestable actions, which are still high on visual impact and which get excellent public support and media coverage.
The Ploughshares action propelled the top secret base into the spotlight. There was predictable hysteria from the powers that be and utter nonsense from the spy agency and some “experts”. Take two examples – we were told that the only purpose of the domes is to keep the satellite dishes weatherproof. Then why doesn’t the multitude of Sky TV dishes on houses up and down the country each need a little dome to stop them getting rusty? The purpose of the domes is to conceal which direction the dish is pointing and thus conceal which satellites they are spying on. The other one was that Waihopai is under full NZ control and only spies for “us”. Read Nicky Hager’s 1996 “Secret Power”, which remains the seminal book on what Waihopai does and for whom (Nicky has written much more recently, in the Sunday Star Times of May 11, about Waihopai’s role as a cog in the US “War On Terror”). The head of the GCSB has no doubts about where his loyalties lie – as soon as he learned of the April 30 attack he rushed to warn NZ’s Big Brothers in the global intelligence gathering UKUSA Agreement (US, UK, Australia and Canada) in case there was a global plan to attack their bases. Why would he do that if Waihopai is an independent NZ operation?
There is an Australian precedent for what the Ploughshares group did and let’s hope that the outcome is the same. In 2005 four members of Christians Against All Terrorism got into the heavily guarded and top secret US warfighting spybase at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, despite having warned the State about what they planned to do and when. They didn’t damage anything, simply trespassed. The furious State made them the first people ever charged under a draconian Cold War law. But in 2007 a judge fined them, rather than imprisoning them. Both sides appealed and this year they were acquitted, on the grounds that they had been denied a central plank of their defence, namely the right to introduce evidence as what Pine Gap does (it is the most important American spybase outside the US). It will be interesting to see how far the Ploughshares defendants are allowed to go in court about Waihopai’s functions.
To find out more about Waihopai and the other two bases in NZ – the US military base at Christchurch Airport and the GCSB’s Tangimoana spybase in the lower North Island - contact the Anti-Bases Campaign, Box 2258, Christchurch, cafca@chch.planet.org.nz www.converge.org.nz/abc
GOOD ON THE WAIHOPAI DOMEBUSTERS
- Murray Horton
Murray Horton is the Organiser and spokesperson for the Anti-Bases Campaign.
Peter Murnane, in the May issue, did an excellent job of establishing that the Waihopai spy base in Marlborough is a terrorist base. Of course, Peter and two other members of the Anzac Ploughshares group have since turned words into action, symbolically closing the base by deflating one of its two domes, leaving the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the Government with egg on their faces.
The Anti-Bases Campaign has been calling for Waihopai’s closure for the 21 years since it was first announced. In the first decade we adopted similar tactics, with dozens of arrests, although without such a spectacular result (the closest we got was splattering a dome as the target of a bullshit throwing contest. The raw material was freely available locally - the winner is now a Protestant clergyman). For the past decade we have opted for non-arrestable actions, which are still high on visual impact and which get excellent public support and media coverage.
The Ploughshares action propelled the top secret base into the spotlight. There was predictable hysteria from the powers that be and utter nonsense from the spy agency and some “experts”. Take two examples – we were told that the only purpose of the domes is to keep the satellite dishes weatherproof. Then why doesn’t the multitude of Sky TV dishes on houses up and down the country each need a little dome to stop them getting rusty? The purpose of the domes is to conceal which direction the dish is pointing and thus conceal which satellites they are spying on. The other one was that Waihopai is under full NZ control and only spies for “us”. Read Nicky Hager’s 1996 “Secret Power”, which remains the seminal book on what Waihopai does and for whom (Nicky has written much more recently, in the Sunday Star Times of May 11, about Waihopai’s role as a cog in the US “War On Terror”). The head of the GCSB has no doubts about where his loyalties lie – as soon as he learned of the April 30 attack he rushed to warn NZ’s Big Brothers in the global intelligence gathering UKUSA Agreement (US, UK, Australia and Canada) in case there was a global plan to attack their bases. Why would he do that if Waihopai is an independent NZ operation?
There is an Australian precedent for what the Ploughshares group did and let’s hope that the outcome is the same. In 2005 four members of Christians Against All Terrorism got into the heavily guarded and top secret US warfighting spybase at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, despite having warned the State about what they planned to do and when. They didn’t damage anything, simply trespassed. The furious State made them the first people ever charged under a draconian Cold War law. But in 2007 a judge fined them, rather than imprisoning them. Both sides appealed and this year they were acquitted, on the grounds that they had been denied a central plank of their defence, namely the right to introduce evidence as what Pine Gap does (it is the most important American spybase outside the US). It will be interesting to see how far the Ploughshares defendants are allowed to go in court about Waihopai’s functions.
To find out more about Waihopai and the other two bases in NZ – the US military base at Christchurch Airport and the GCSB’s Tangimoana spybase in the lower North Island - contact the Anti-Bases Campaign, Box 2258, Christchurch, cafca@chch.planet.org.nz www.converge.org.nz/abc
Chris Trotter on Rio Tinto
Published in the Dominion Post
Time to call Rio Tinto's bluff
Once again the masks have slipped. Once again we have caught a glimpse of the true faces of our masters. Once again, New Zealand's acute vulnerability to the power of vast transnational corporations has been brutally revealed.
As an exercise in raw economic coercion, Rio Tinto's submission to the parliamentary select committee scrutinising our Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) was chilling.
Ranged before the elected representatives of the New Zealand people were the appointed representatives of one of the world's largest and most profitable corporations.
Including its joint ventures, Rio Tinto employs 73,000 people in 61 countries. It is the global leader in smelting aluminium, with annual revenues of US$49 billion (NZ$65 billion), a sum roughly equivalent to 30 per cent of New Zealand's entire gross domestic product.
As living proof that neither race nor gender counts for very much in this new age of equal- opportunity capitalism, Rio Tinto's Asia/Pacific president is a woman of Chinese descent, Ms Xiaoling Liu. It was from her that the select committee received the bad news.
In its current form, she explained, the ETS posed a threat to the economic competitiveness of the Bluff aluminium smelter's production. Rio Tinto could not, therefore, guarantee the smelter's long-term future if the Government's scheme (in its current form) was permitted to proceed.
And that was that.
Her judgment, as cold and bleak as a Southland winter, was left to slowly defrost on the committee-room table. And now, while Invercargill shivers, and its voluble mayor, Tim Shadbolt, shakes his fist, our government must determine its response.
Thirty years ago, faced with such a flagrant challenge to its sovereignty, a Labour government might have countered Rio Tinto's presentation by threatening to nationalise its New Zealand operation. Today, quite apart from exposing the nation to all manner of WTO penalties, such a threat would be laughed out of court.
Rio Tinto, "whose business is finding, mining and processing the Earth's mineral resources", not only dominates the world's aluminium smelting industry, but also controls the lion's share of the planet's bauxite deposits. Without bauxite, of course, an aluminium smelter is useless.
So, should the Government call her and Rio Tinto's bluff?
By forcing Rio Tinto's departure, and the shutting down of the Tiwai Pt smelter, Labour would be free to divert 15 per cent of New Zealand's total electrical energy production (the amount consumed by the smelter) to other uses.
The period in which new generation facilities need to be commissioned could be dramatically extended, and electricity price rises smoothed considerably, by such a massive energy windfall.
Unfortunately, calling Rio Tinto's bluff would also entail ripping the heart (and, according to Mayor Shadbolt, the soul) out of Southland's economy. By local estimates, at least 3000 jobs – many of them extremely well- paid – would be lost, with devastating social and economic consequences for the entire Southland region.
While the fourth Labour government was only too willing to consign thousands of workers to the human scrap-heap in the name of economic rationalisation, I'm not so sure that this Government is ready to follow suit, at least, not in an election year.
Murray Horton, from the Campaign Against Foreign Control in Aotearoa, thinks they should: "Go ahead and close the smelter and bugger off", he thunders. "See if we care, the country will be much better off without you.
The smelter is the single biggest user of electricity, consuming one-sixth of the total. It pays a top-secret, super-cheap price that is not available to any other user and all it does is export electricity from New Zealand in the form of alumina, while being subsidised by all other electricity users."
Way back at the beginning of this latest period of globalisation, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, notoriously remarked: "Ideally you'd have every plant you own on a barge." The theory was, big business could hold unions and governments to ransom by threatening to go offshore if the cost of labour, or environmental regulation, became too expensive.
What Mr Welch and his ilk failed to foresee was that a time would come when the greenhouse gas emissions from every plant they owned represented so great a threat to the planet that the location of their barges no longer really mattered.
I'd invite Rio Tinto to do their worst but I suspect they already are.
Time to call Rio Tinto's bluff
Once again the masks have slipped. Once again we have caught a glimpse of the true faces of our masters. Once again, New Zealand's acute vulnerability to the power of vast transnational corporations has been brutally revealed.
As an exercise in raw economic coercion, Rio Tinto's submission to the parliamentary select committee scrutinising our Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) was chilling.
Ranged before the elected representatives of the New Zealand people were the appointed representatives of one of the world's largest and most profitable corporations.
Including its joint ventures, Rio Tinto employs 73,000 people in 61 countries. It is the global leader in smelting aluminium, with annual revenues of US$49 billion (NZ$65 billion), a sum roughly equivalent to 30 per cent of New Zealand's entire gross domestic product.
As living proof that neither race nor gender counts for very much in this new age of equal- opportunity capitalism, Rio Tinto's Asia/Pacific president is a woman of Chinese descent, Ms Xiaoling Liu. It was from her that the select committee received the bad news.
In its current form, she explained, the ETS posed a threat to the economic competitiveness of the Bluff aluminium smelter's production. Rio Tinto could not, therefore, guarantee the smelter's long-term future if the Government's scheme (in its current form) was permitted to proceed.
And that was that.
Her judgment, as cold and bleak as a Southland winter, was left to slowly defrost on the committee-room table. And now, while Invercargill shivers, and its voluble mayor, Tim Shadbolt, shakes his fist, our government must determine its response.
Thirty years ago, faced with such a flagrant challenge to its sovereignty, a Labour government might have countered Rio Tinto's presentation by threatening to nationalise its New Zealand operation. Today, quite apart from exposing the nation to all manner of WTO penalties, such a threat would be laughed out of court.
Rio Tinto, "whose business is finding, mining and processing the Earth's mineral resources", not only dominates the world's aluminium smelting industry, but also controls the lion's share of the planet's bauxite deposits. Without bauxite, of course, an aluminium smelter is useless.
So, should the Government call her and Rio Tinto's bluff?
By forcing Rio Tinto's departure, and the shutting down of the Tiwai Pt smelter, Labour would be free to divert 15 per cent of New Zealand's total electrical energy production (the amount consumed by the smelter) to other uses.
The period in which new generation facilities need to be commissioned could be dramatically extended, and electricity price rises smoothed considerably, by such a massive energy windfall.
Unfortunately, calling Rio Tinto's bluff would also entail ripping the heart (and, according to Mayor Shadbolt, the soul) out of Southland's economy. By local estimates, at least 3000 jobs – many of them extremely well- paid – would be lost, with devastating social and economic consequences for the entire Southland region.
While the fourth Labour government was only too willing to consign thousands of workers to the human scrap-heap in the name of economic rationalisation, I'm not so sure that this Government is ready to follow suit, at least, not in an election year.
Murray Horton, from the Campaign Against Foreign Control in Aotearoa, thinks they should: "Go ahead and close the smelter and bugger off", he thunders. "See if we care, the country will be much better off without you.
The smelter is the single biggest user of electricity, consuming one-sixth of the total. It pays a top-secret, super-cheap price that is not available to any other user and all it does is export electricity from New Zealand in the form of alumina, while being subsidised by all other electricity users."
Way back at the beginning of this latest period of globalisation, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, notoriously remarked: "Ideally you'd have every plant you own on a barge." The theory was, big business could hold unions and governments to ransom by threatening to go offshore if the cost of labour, or environmental regulation, became too expensive.
What Mr Welch and his ilk failed to foresee was that a time would come when the greenhouse gas emissions from every plant they owned represented so great a threat to the planet that the location of their barges no longer really mattered.
I'd invite Rio Tinto to do their worst but I suspect they already are.
Rio Tinto - CAFCA Press Release
RIO TINTO, STOP CRYING WOLF
Just Close The Bluff Smelter & Bugger Off
Here we go again. Every time that Rio Tinto, the gargantuan mining and processing transnational which owns 80% of the Bluff smelter feels that its charmed existence in New Zealand is going to become less cushy, it threatens to pull the plug, close the smelter and walk away. This time it has threatened to do so because of the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme. Previously it has made an identical threat as a negotiating tactic in power price contract talks with Meridian. And it has done so before when the Government of the day called for power use reductions because of electricity shortages.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa calls Rio Tinto’s bluff. Stop crying wolf, stop holding Southland and the country to ransom. Go ahead and close the smelter and bugger off. See if we care, the country will be much better off without you. The smelter is the single biggest user of electricity, consuming one sixth of the total, 24/7 for the past nearly 40 years. It pays a top secret super cheap price that is not available to any other user and all it does is export electricity from NZ in the form of alumina, while being subsidised by all other electricity users. Once again we are being told to brace for power shortages this winter and once again this parasite is being given top priority of guaranteed uninterrupted supply.
The smelter is the textbook example of corporate welfare in New Zealand. It is the biggest bludger in the country. Those who extol the bracing discipline of market forces for everybody else are strangely coy when it comes to this corporate recidivist. When the Government renationalised the railways last week, one pejorative word which was heard a lot was “featherbedding”. If you want to see the most feathered of beds, look no further than the Bluff smelter.
What about the people who work for the smelter, directly or indirectly? The P industry provides an income for thousands of people too, but we don’t hear any demand for that insidious trade to be kept going to keep them in a job. This smelter constitutes a bigger crime against the people of New Zealand and has done for the nearly 40 years that it has been operating. In the national interest, it must be closed and the sooner the better.
Just Close The Bluff Smelter & Bugger Off
Here we go again. Every time that Rio Tinto, the gargantuan mining and processing transnational which owns 80% of the Bluff smelter feels that its charmed existence in New Zealand is going to become less cushy, it threatens to pull the plug, close the smelter and walk away. This time it has threatened to do so because of the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme. Previously it has made an identical threat as a negotiating tactic in power price contract talks with Meridian. And it has done so before when the Government of the day called for power use reductions because of electricity shortages.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa calls Rio Tinto’s bluff. Stop crying wolf, stop holding Southland and the country to ransom. Go ahead and close the smelter and bugger off. See if we care, the country will be much better off without you. The smelter is the single biggest user of electricity, consuming one sixth of the total, 24/7 for the past nearly 40 years. It pays a top secret super cheap price that is not available to any other user and all it does is export electricity from NZ in the form of alumina, while being subsidised by all other electricity users. Once again we are being told to brace for power shortages this winter and once again this parasite is being given top priority of guaranteed uninterrupted supply.
The smelter is the textbook example of corporate welfare in New Zealand. It is the biggest bludger in the country. Those who extol the bracing discipline of market forces for everybody else are strangely coy when it comes to this corporate recidivist. When the Government renationalised the railways last week, one pejorative word which was heard a lot was “featherbedding”. If you want to see the most feathered of beds, look no further than the Bluff smelter.
What about the people who work for the smelter, directly or indirectly? The P industry provides an income for thousands of people too, but we don’t hear any demand for that insidious trade to be kept going to keep them in a job. This smelter constitutes a bigger crime against the people of New Zealand and has done for the nearly 40 years that it has been operating. In the national interest, it must be closed and the sooner the better.
Nicky Hager on Waihopai Ploughshares Action
Waihopai: our role in international spying
When three Christian protesters deflated a radome at the Waihopai intelligence base 12 days ago, citing the base's support for the US War on Terror, a chorus of voices ridiculed the suggestion.
Waihopai is entirely a New Zealand operation, not part of the War on Terror, they said. It is, in the words of one newspaper, just to "keep New Zealand competitive in diplomatic, political and trade negotiations".
They are completely wrong. New information, prised out by former Chief Ombudsman John Belgrave and from intelligence insiders, makes it clear that Waihopai, and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) that runs it, have been heavily focused on supporting the US War on Terror since September 11, 2001.
It's understandable if people are ignorant about the GCSB. It is New Zealand's largest but least understood intelligence agency. Whereas the SIS spies within New Zealand, the GCSB and its predecessor have worked within an extremely secret five-nation alliance since the late 1940s, eavesdropping on other countries' radio communications and, nowadays, emails and phone calls.
The first signs of the GCSB's War on Terror role came thanks to the efforts of Belgrave, who sadly died late last year. The GCSB had refused an Official Information Act request for information on its post-September 11 activities, but Belgrave was unconvinced by the GCSB's claim of needing total secrecy.
The papers he ordered released show immediate changes inside the GCSB in the early days of the War on Terror. A June 2002 annual report declared that "the 2001-2002 Financial Year has been a defining year for the Bureau". It said "the events of 11 September led to a major shift in focus for the Bureau and defined its operations for most of the year".
It noted in particular that the "SIGINT" operations (signals intelligence), which include the spying on satellite communications from the Waihopai station, "were defined by [the Bureau's] response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 ... and the consequent heightened demands for those services".
This heightened demand for spying services quickly led to requests for extra resources. Both funding and staff numbers have nearly doubled (to $42 million and 370 staff) in the six years since. Insiders say the first changes in early 2002 included a new analysis section devoted to terrorism-related intelligence, named the Transnational Issues Reporting Team and located in the headquarters' SIGINT Production Unit. Their job is to process "raw" intercepted emails and other messages intercepted at Waihopai and elsewhere: translating them and producing standardised intelligence reports to send to New Zealand and overseas intelligence "end users".
Most GCSB spying occurs at Waihopai. However, inside sources say another major New Zealand contribution to US war-on-terror activities has been covert GCSB-directed electronic eavesdropping teams. The GCSB began using specially trained New Zealand military personnel for overseas spying missions in the late 1980s, first using Navy staff and later Army and Air Force staff. Insiders say that immediately after the September 11 attacks these GCSB-trained personnel were sent to serve with US forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
In 2003 the GCSB began openly publishing annual reports. They show a continued priority on the War on Terror. "The ongoing war against terrorism was a major focus of the Bureau's signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations," director Warren Tucker wrote. This was achieved "through an increase in the numbers of analytic and processing staff, and ongoing work to enhance technical collection and processing capability."
BY THEN the War on Terror had changed. Osama bin Laden was all but forgotten and the United States was primarily focused on Iraq. Intelligence justifying the Iraq invasion had been discredited and photos were appearing from the Abu Ghraib prison. But the GCSB was set on its new path and there was no sign of reconsidering the War on Terror role.
In the 2004 annual report, Tucker wrote: "Throughout the year, the Bureau has continued to play its full part in the international partnership. Collaboration and co-operation, particularly on counter-terrorism, is extremely strong, as demonstrated by the record number of visitors to GCSB (including several major conferences)." The War on Terror had become a welcome means for New Zealand intelligence and military staff to achieve closer relations with United States intelligence and military agencies.
It was also a great way to get more resources. Tucker wrote in the 2004 report that "the Bureau was successful during the year in obtaining significant additional funding for a range of capability enhancements" including "further development on both collection stations" (such as a new 7.3m antennae at Waihopai) and a further increase in the number of intelligence analysts. (A fourth Waihopai dish was added in 2007.)
Within the GCSB, some staff were not so sure about the direction. One confided privately that "many people [in the Bureau] feel it's worthwhile watching out for terrorism in our region but it doesn't mean they support George Bush's approach, rushing into wars and all."
They could see how closely the GCSB's terrorism work was aligned to US foreign policy. That year's annual report mentions that the GCSB had made "a considerable effort... during the year to provide enhanced language training for our intelligence analysts" and that "preparation of a strategy for long-term language capability development is now well advanced".
This was written when "fighting terrorism" in the Middle East was looking more like fomenting terrorism and many countries were urgently re-evaluating their role in the War on Terror. The GCSB report didn't say what language capabilities were being increased in the long-term strategy, but the answer is they were digging in to continue supporting the George Bush approach.
The enhanced language training was overseen, like various other major GCSB developments, by a British intelligence officer posted to Wellington for the purpose. According to GCSB staff, the officer, a polite man in his 40s, was a language specialist from the British sister agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Staff throughout the Wellington headquarters knew he was a GCHQ Middle Eastern languages specialist, speaking four or more Arabic languages, and that his job during 2004 was to reorient the New Zealand analysis sections towards Middle Eastern language intelligence.
And so it went on. The 2005 annual report shows a further 30% rise in budget for the year, including more analysts and "continued enhancements to the Bureau's two collection stations at Tangimoana and Waihopai". It says "counter-terrorism and regional issues continue to be the major focuses of the Bureau's intelligence efforts". Each subsequent annual report uses the same words. In late 2007 GCSB director Bruce Ferguson was privately seeking linguists competent in Farsi/Persian (the main language of Iran and part of Afghanistan) to recruit as intelligence analysts.
Throughout this, the mood does not sound like one of dreadful responsibility to stop terrorism, but more of welcome opportunity to build up the spy agency. Even in the first months after the September 11 attacks, amid public fear and uncertainty, Tucker wrote in a non-public annual report that "the internal atmosphere of the Bureau [had] changed during the year, with a much greater sense of optimism at the end of the year, brought about by certainty of funding and a sharpened sense of mission and purpose."
All of this makes it clear that, whatever you think of the Christian protest at Waihopai, they were correct when they described it as an important part of the Bush adminstration's War on Terror. But the GCSB is generally so secret that it's easy for people to sound off in uninformed ways.
Peter Cozens, head of the Centre for Strategic Studies, for instance, said the base is used strictly to collect and analyse information, often of "a political, trade and diplomatic nature", for the New Zealand government. He told the New Zealand Herald that Waihopai is "entirely, totally cosa nostra New Zealand. It is New Zealand's mafia, if you like. It's our thing. It's got nothing to do with the Americans".
Incorrect. The Waihopai station, like the GCSB itself, is staffed and funded by New Zealanders. It is not a US base in the sense of US personnel being stationed on New Zealand soil. But it has everything to do with the Americans. The station is part of a network of similar stations set up at US prompting by allies around the world. The same equipment, manuals, codewords and communication systems are found in each station.
This US intelligence system, codenamed "Echelon" in the 1990s, was the subject of a 2000-2001 European parliament inquiry that confirmed and added extra detail to the descriptions of Echelon provided by GCSB staff for my 1996 book about the agency. It uses computers codenamed Dictionaries to sift intelligence from the millions of satellite communications intercepted at the various facilities. The key to the system is that each station does not just collect intelligence for the home nation. Waihopai, like the others, has separate US, British and Australian search lists (keywords, email addresses etc) that are used to identify and collect intelligence for the US, British and Australian electronic spying agencies. Thus at the same time as Waihopai collects intelligence on the South Pacific and other subjects for the GCSB, it also functions in effect as a foreign base collecting intelligence for the intelligence allies.
The intercepted messages collected for the New Zealand agency go by an encrypted link across Cook Strait to the Freyberg Building headquarters in Aitken St, Wellington. They are stored in a computer database inside a large vault room 12.11 on the GCSB's 12th floor until processed by the intelligence analysts. But the messages collected at Waihopai for the other allies, which mostly means the United States, are routed straight from the 14th floor GCSB information centre to Washington DC and allied agencies.
The early (non-public) GCSB annual reports acknowledged the agency's role assisting the overseas intelligence allies. "New Zealand's international intelligence links are strengthened by a reliable contribution to allied intelligence community efforts," the 2000 report said.
However, subsequent publicly available annual reports removed this statement and said only that "the mission of the GCSB is to contribute to the national security of New Zealand through... providing foreign signals intelligence to support and inform government decision-making".
The GCSB's role in the US-led network is well known to its own staff. When they arrive at headquarters each day, they walk along corridors displaying framed pictures of the signals intelligence bases that are the foundation of their work: photos of Waihopai and its US and allied sister stations dotted around the globe. There is no good reason why other New Zealanders should not also be allowed to know the basic facts of these intelligence ties, and whose foreign policies they are supporting.
When three Christian protesters deflated a radome at the Waihopai intelligence base 12 days ago, citing the base's support for the US War on Terror, a chorus of voices ridiculed the suggestion.
Waihopai is entirely a New Zealand operation, not part of the War on Terror, they said. It is, in the words of one newspaper, just to "keep New Zealand competitive in diplomatic, political and trade negotiations".
They are completely wrong. New information, prised out by former Chief Ombudsman John Belgrave and from intelligence insiders, makes it clear that Waihopai, and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) that runs it, have been heavily focused on supporting the US War on Terror since September 11, 2001.
It's understandable if people are ignorant about the GCSB. It is New Zealand's largest but least understood intelligence agency. Whereas the SIS spies within New Zealand, the GCSB and its predecessor have worked within an extremely secret five-nation alliance since the late 1940s, eavesdropping on other countries' radio communications and, nowadays, emails and phone calls.
The first signs of the GCSB's War on Terror role came thanks to the efforts of Belgrave, who sadly died late last year. The GCSB had refused an Official Information Act request for information on its post-September 11 activities, but Belgrave was unconvinced by the GCSB's claim of needing total secrecy.
The papers he ordered released show immediate changes inside the GCSB in the early days of the War on Terror. A June 2002 annual report declared that "the 2001-2002 Financial Year has been a defining year for the Bureau". It said "the events of 11 September led to a major shift in focus for the Bureau and defined its operations for most of the year".
It noted in particular that the "SIGINT" operations (signals intelligence), which include the spying on satellite communications from the Waihopai station, "were defined by [the Bureau's] response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 ... and the consequent heightened demands for those services".
This heightened demand for spying services quickly led to requests for extra resources. Both funding and staff numbers have nearly doubled (to $42 million and 370 staff) in the six years since. Insiders say the first changes in early 2002 included a new analysis section devoted to terrorism-related intelligence, named the Transnational Issues Reporting Team and located in the headquarters' SIGINT Production Unit. Their job is to process "raw" intercepted emails and other messages intercepted at Waihopai and elsewhere: translating them and producing standardised intelligence reports to send to New Zealand and overseas intelligence "end users".
Most GCSB spying occurs at Waihopai. However, inside sources say another major New Zealand contribution to US war-on-terror activities has been covert GCSB-directed electronic eavesdropping teams. The GCSB began using specially trained New Zealand military personnel for overseas spying missions in the late 1980s, first using Navy staff and later Army and Air Force staff. Insiders say that immediately after the September 11 attacks these GCSB-trained personnel were sent to serve with US forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
In 2003 the GCSB began openly publishing annual reports. They show a continued priority on the War on Terror. "The ongoing war against terrorism was a major focus of the Bureau's signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations," director Warren Tucker wrote. This was achieved "through an increase in the numbers of analytic and processing staff, and ongoing work to enhance technical collection and processing capability."
BY THEN the War on Terror had changed. Osama bin Laden was all but forgotten and the United States was primarily focused on Iraq. Intelligence justifying the Iraq invasion had been discredited and photos were appearing from the Abu Ghraib prison. But the GCSB was set on its new path and there was no sign of reconsidering the War on Terror role.
In the 2004 annual report, Tucker wrote: "Throughout the year, the Bureau has continued to play its full part in the international partnership. Collaboration and co-operation, particularly on counter-terrorism, is extremely strong, as demonstrated by the record number of visitors to GCSB (including several major conferences)." The War on Terror had become a welcome means for New Zealand intelligence and military staff to achieve closer relations with United States intelligence and military agencies.
It was also a great way to get more resources. Tucker wrote in the 2004 report that "the Bureau was successful during the year in obtaining significant additional funding for a range of capability enhancements" including "further development on both collection stations" (such as a new 7.3m antennae at Waihopai) and a further increase in the number of intelligence analysts. (A fourth Waihopai dish was added in 2007.)
Within the GCSB, some staff were not so sure about the direction. One confided privately that "many people [in the Bureau] feel it's worthwhile watching out for terrorism in our region but it doesn't mean they support George Bush's approach, rushing into wars and all."
They could see how closely the GCSB's terrorism work was aligned to US foreign policy. That year's annual report mentions that the GCSB had made "a considerable effort... during the year to provide enhanced language training for our intelligence analysts" and that "preparation of a strategy for long-term language capability development is now well advanced".
This was written when "fighting terrorism" in the Middle East was looking more like fomenting terrorism and many countries were urgently re-evaluating their role in the War on Terror. The GCSB report didn't say what language capabilities were being increased in the long-term strategy, but the answer is they were digging in to continue supporting the George Bush approach.
The enhanced language training was overseen, like various other major GCSB developments, by a British intelligence officer posted to Wellington for the purpose. According to GCSB staff, the officer, a polite man in his 40s, was a language specialist from the British sister agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Staff throughout the Wellington headquarters knew he was a GCHQ Middle Eastern languages specialist, speaking four or more Arabic languages, and that his job during 2004 was to reorient the New Zealand analysis sections towards Middle Eastern language intelligence.
And so it went on. The 2005 annual report shows a further 30% rise in budget for the year, including more analysts and "continued enhancements to the Bureau's two collection stations at Tangimoana and Waihopai". It says "counter-terrorism and regional issues continue to be the major focuses of the Bureau's intelligence efforts". Each subsequent annual report uses the same words. In late 2007 GCSB director Bruce Ferguson was privately seeking linguists competent in Farsi/Persian (the main language of Iran and part of Afghanistan) to recruit as intelligence analysts.
Throughout this, the mood does not sound like one of dreadful responsibility to stop terrorism, but more of welcome opportunity to build up the spy agency. Even in the first months after the September 11 attacks, amid public fear and uncertainty, Tucker wrote in a non-public annual report that "the internal atmosphere of the Bureau [had] changed during the year, with a much greater sense of optimism at the end of the year, brought about by certainty of funding and a sharpened sense of mission and purpose."
All of this makes it clear that, whatever you think of the Christian protest at Waihopai, they were correct when they described it as an important part of the Bush adminstration's War on Terror. But the GCSB is generally so secret that it's easy for people to sound off in uninformed ways.
Peter Cozens, head of the Centre for Strategic Studies, for instance, said the base is used strictly to collect and analyse information, often of "a political, trade and diplomatic nature", for the New Zealand government. He told the New Zealand Herald that Waihopai is "entirely, totally cosa nostra New Zealand. It is New Zealand's mafia, if you like. It's our thing. It's got nothing to do with the Americans".
Incorrect. The Waihopai station, like the GCSB itself, is staffed and funded by New Zealanders. It is not a US base in the sense of US personnel being stationed on New Zealand soil. But it has everything to do with the Americans. The station is part of a network of similar stations set up at US prompting by allies around the world. The same equipment, manuals, codewords and communication systems are found in each station.
This US intelligence system, codenamed "Echelon" in the 1990s, was the subject of a 2000-2001 European parliament inquiry that confirmed and added extra detail to the descriptions of Echelon provided by GCSB staff for my 1996 book about the agency. It uses computers codenamed Dictionaries to sift intelligence from the millions of satellite communications intercepted at the various facilities. The key to the system is that each station does not just collect intelligence for the home nation. Waihopai, like the others, has separate US, British and Australian search lists (keywords, email addresses etc) that are used to identify and collect intelligence for the US, British and Australian electronic spying agencies. Thus at the same time as Waihopai collects intelligence on the South Pacific and other subjects for the GCSB, it also functions in effect as a foreign base collecting intelligence for the intelligence allies.
The intercepted messages collected for the New Zealand agency go by an encrypted link across Cook Strait to the Freyberg Building headquarters in Aitken St, Wellington. They are stored in a computer database inside a large vault room 12.11 on the GCSB's 12th floor until processed by the intelligence analysts. But the messages collected at Waihopai for the other allies, which mostly means the United States, are routed straight from the 14th floor GCSB information centre to Washington DC and allied agencies.
The early (non-public) GCSB annual reports acknowledged the agency's role assisting the overseas intelligence allies. "New Zealand's international intelligence links are strengthened by a reliable contribution to allied intelligence community efforts," the 2000 report said.
However, subsequent publicly available annual reports removed this statement and said only that "the mission of the GCSB is to contribute to the national security of New Zealand through... providing foreign signals intelligence to support and inform government decision-making".
The GCSB's role in the US-led network is well known to its own staff. When they arrive at headquarters each day, they walk along corridors displaying framed pictures of the signals intelligence bases that are the foundation of their work: photos of Waihopai and its US and allied sister stations dotted around the globe. There is no good reason why other New Zealanders should not also be allowed to know the basic facts of these intelligence ties, and whose foreign policies they are supporting.
NZ FACES A STARK CHOICE OVER STRATEGIC ASSETS
- Bill Rosenberg
It is positive and significant to see the beginnings of a national consensus forming around the protection of strategic assets from overseas control. The Government is to be congratulated on its recent change to the Overseas Investment Regulations, even if it is late in the day. We have yet to see what National means when it says it favours 51% New Zealand ownership, but that is a big change in their previous attitudes. The question for all parties is what can they do to make this policy a reality?
If the Government’s way of doing it – an amendment to the regulations controlling overseas ownership of sensitive land – seemed Mickey Mouse, it is because that is just about the only loophole it has left for anything approaching economy-wide protection of our assets. Commitments made by the National government in 1994 to the World Trade Organisation under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) left following governments with limited options. There were exceptions in the commitments for some sectors, but swathes of the economy were bound into a promise not to tighten the 1994 level of protection – even then very fragile.
Subsequent trade and investment agreements which National and Labour have signed with Australia, Singapore, Chile and others have widened those commitments even further. The 2001 agreement with Singapore for example both broadened the list of sectors affected and significantly reduced the options available to this and future governments. The laws screening overseas investment where no land or fishing quota is involved are totally ineffectual: no application has been turned down for decades because there is no real power to do so. But at least governments had the right to tighten them before these international agreements were signed. The main useful exception governments have retained has been where land is involved. Hence this strange piece of machinery.
New US Agreement Will Wipe Any Remaining Rules On Foreign Investment
But while one arm of Government is trying to repair the damage, however awkwardly, another appears to be preparing to exacerbate the problem. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently announced the opening of negotiations with Singapore, Chile and Brunei to extend a two year old trade and investment agreement (the grandly named Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership – often known as the P4) into investment and financial services. Any extension into investment would certainly limit the Government’s right to regulate overseas ownership of New Zealand assets.
What makes these negotiations especially significant is the announcement that the US is joining in. The US signals its interests well in advance. The Office of the United States Trade Representative, which is responsible for negotiating such agreements, publishes an annual assessment of what US companies regard as “trade barriers”[i]. The latest one is for 2007. Its assessment of New Zealand included a description of the current overseas investment legislative rules and the statement: “The United States has raised concerns about the continued use of this screening mechanism”.
It can therefore be taken as a certainty that the US will be trying to remove these protections, feeble though many of them are. One of the prices of an agreement with the US will be to back down on our control of our own strategic assets. The US already has some draconian investment rules with both Chile and Singapore that can be enforced by US companies, not just the US government. They will insist that these be made more extensive and accepted by New Zealand.
Governments in the past have tried to justify sacrificing our sovereign rights in this way by pointing to gains bought in agricultural market access. This time however, where only investment and financial services are up for negotiation, anything given away won’t be available for any future negotiations on agriculture. It doesn’t even make sense in tactical terms.
We have been warned. One of the world’s best known economists, Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, recently warned New Zealand off even a full trade deal. He told the Sunday Star-Times that “most of these free trade agreements are not good deals… they’re managed trade agreements and they’re mostly managed for the advantage of the United States, which has the bulk of the negotiating power”.
He said there was no real negotiation and “one can’t think that New Zealand would ever get anything that it cares about”. New Zealand’s agriculture interests are head to head against those of the powerful American agricultural lobby. Stiglitz warned: “you’ll lose”.[ii] It’s choice time for the Government, and for whoever wins in the election later this year. Protect strategic assets or negotiate a deal with the US. It can’t have both, and New Zealand will probably lose even if it gets a deal.
This article was published in the Independent 26/3/08. Ed.
[i] See http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2007/2007_NTE_Report/Section_Index.html
[ii] “Clinton’s economist warns NZ off US trade deal”, by Anthony Hubbard, Sunday Star-Times, 9/3/08, pA13.
It is positive and significant to see the beginnings of a national consensus forming around the protection of strategic assets from overseas control. The Government is to be congratulated on its recent change to the Overseas Investment Regulations, even if it is late in the day. We have yet to see what National means when it says it favours 51% New Zealand ownership, but that is a big change in their previous attitudes. The question for all parties is what can they do to make this policy a reality?
If the Government’s way of doing it – an amendment to the regulations controlling overseas ownership of sensitive land – seemed Mickey Mouse, it is because that is just about the only loophole it has left for anything approaching economy-wide protection of our assets. Commitments made by the National government in 1994 to the World Trade Organisation under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) left following governments with limited options. There were exceptions in the commitments for some sectors, but swathes of the economy were bound into a promise not to tighten the 1994 level of protection – even then very fragile.
Subsequent trade and investment agreements which National and Labour have signed with Australia, Singapore, Chile and others have widened those commitments even further. The 2001 agreement with Singapore for example both broadened the list of sectors affected and significantly reduced the options available to this and future governments. The laws screening overseas investment where no land or fishing quota is involved are totally ineffectual: no application has been turned down for decades because there is no real power to do so. But at least governments had the right to tighten them before these international agreements were signed. The main useful exception governments have retained has been where land is involved. Hence this strange piece of machinery.
New US Agreement Will Wipe Any Remaining Rules On Foreign Investment
But while one arm of Government is trying to repair the damage, however awkwardly, another appears to be preparing to exacerbate the problem. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently announced the opening of negotiations with Singapore, Chile and Brunei to extend a two year old trade and investment agreement (the grandly named Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership – often known as the P4) into investment and financial services. Any extension into investment would certainly limit the Government’s right to regulate overseas ownership of New Zealand assets.
What makes these negotiations especially significant is the announcement that the US is joining in. The US signals its interests well in advance. The Office of the United States Trade Representative, which is responsible for negotiating such agreements, publishes an annual assessment of what US companies regard as “trade barriers”[i]. The latest one is for 2007. Its assessment of New Zealand included a description of the current overseas investment legislative rules and the statement: “The United States has raised concerns about the continued use of this screening mechanism”.
It can therefore be taken as a certainty that the US will be trying to remove these protections, feeble though many of them are. One of the prices of an agreement with the US will be to back down on our control of our own strategic assets. The US already has some draconian investment rules with both Chile and Singapore that can be enforced by US companies, not just the US government. They will insist that these be made more extensive and accepted by New Zealand.
Governments in the past have tried to justify sacrificing our sovereign rights in this way by pointing to gains bought in agricultural market access. This time however, where only investment and financial services are up for negotiation, anything given away won’t be available for any future negotiations on agriculture. It doesn’t even make sense in tactical terms.
We have been warned. One of the world’s best known economists, Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, recently warned New Zealand off even a full trade deal. He told the Sunday Star-Times that “most of these free trade agreements are not good deals… they’re managed trade agreements and they’re mostly managed for the advantage of the United States, which has the bulk of the negotiating power”.
He said there was no real negotiation and “one can’t think that New Zealand would ever get anything that it cares about”. New Zealand’s agriculture interests are head to head against those of the powerful American agricultural lobby. Stiglitz warned: “you’ll lose”.[ii] It’s choice time for the Government, and for whoever wins in the election later this year. Protect strategic assets or negotiate a deal with the US. It can’t have both, and New Zealand will probably lose even if it gets a deal.
This article was published in the Independent 26/3/08. Ed.
[i] See http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2007/2007_NTE_Report/Section_Index.html
[ii] “Clinton’s economist warns NZ off US trade deal”, by Anthony Hubbard, Sunday Star-Times, 9/3/08, pA13.
Death in the Family
Watchdog also acknowledges CAFCA members who have recently lost family.
DEATHS IN THE FAMILY
CAFCA expresses our condolences to Lynn Baird for the death of her mother, Betty who died suddenly of a stroke, aged 75, in November 2007, in Auckland. This was a hell of a shock not only to her family but also to me. I’d visited her and Lynn at their Waiheke Island homes, and the three of us had gone out for a very pleasant lunch together, just the weekend before the stroke which led to her death a few days later. It had been five years since the death of Betty’s husband, Ken (see Watchdog 101, December 2002, which can be read online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/01/09.htm) and at that lunch I’d had her on about being a merry widow. She was, too, not being one to let the grass grow under her feet. In those five years she’d travelled in NZ, all over Aussie and as far away as Barcelona (she was one of the Kiwi contingent who went there in 2007 for the America’s Cup).
Over the years, various members of the Baird family, including Ken and Betty, have been members of CAFCA and they were both very pleased to be present at our 25th anniversary celebration, in Christchurch, in 2000. Betty was an extremely vivacious and gregarious woman, who both brought up four daughters and worked all her life, in a variety of working class jobs. Her political activism went back decades and went up a notch during the epic struggle against the 1981 Springbok Tour (she got hurt at one Auckland protest).
Berry and Ken lived life to the full, travelling overseas, touring New Zealand in their campervan, or going fishing from their second home on Waiheke Island (which became their home proper once Ken retired). During the nearly four decades I’ve known the family, I ran into Ken and Betty all over the place – in Christchurch, at their Papatoetoe and Waiheke homes, and in Sydney (three of their four daughters have lived there for long periods; one still does). I have vivid memories of one particular Sydney occasion in the 1980s, when their family got together with that of my then partner (the Bairds and the Birds). They got on like a house on fire. Both families were matriarchies and the men were forced to trudge around, bringing up the rear, while the women emptied the Cronulla shops. Ken and I ended up squatting in shop doorways, sitting on a chilly bin of beer that we lugged everywhere with us and steadily consuming its contents (nobody batted an eyelid, this was Australia). We all had a great day, with a boat trip across to the beautiful beach at Bundeena and more than 20 of us had an uproarious night out in one of the monstrous clubs of the Ocker suburbs, where Warren Mitchell did his Alf Garnett act and brought the Aussies to their feet every time he told New Zealand jokes (the bastard – they were funny though). They were game for anything – we all spent one boisterous New Year’s Eve at a Darlinghurst gay bar in central Sydney.
I’ve still got photos of the long ago day on the beach at Bundeena and, ironically, Betty and I were reminiscing about it over that Waiheke lunch in November, not realising that it would be the last time we’d see each other. Betty Baird was a memorable woman, good fun and sparkling company. She will be sorely missed by her four daughters, Sharleen, Lynn, Sandy and Julie, four grandsons and all her friends, me included.
DEATHS IN THE FAMILY
CAFCA expresses our condolences to Lynn Baird for the death of her mother, Betty who died suddenly of a stroke, aged 75, in November 2007, in Auckland. This was a hell of a shock not only to her family but also to me. I’d visited her and Lynn at their Waiheke Island homes, and the three of us had gone out for a very pleasant lunch together, just the weekend before the stroke which led to her death a few days later. It had been five years since the death of Betty’s husband, Ken (see Watchdog 101, December 2002, which can be read online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/01/09.htm) and at that lunch I’d had her on about being a merry widow. She was, too, not being one to let the grass grow under her feet. In those five years she’d travelled in NZ, all over Aussie and as far away as Barcelona (she was one of the Kiwi contingent who went there in 2007 for the America’s Cup).
Over the years, various members of the Baird family, including Ken and Betty, have been members of CAFCA and they were both very pleased to be present at our 25th anniversary celebration, in Christchurch, in 2000. Betty was an extremely vivacious and gregarious woman, who both brought up four daughters and worked all her life, in a variety of working class jobs. Her political activism went back decades and went up a notch during the epic struggle against the 1981 Springbok Tour (she got hurt at one Auckland protest).
Berry and Ken lived life to the full, travelling overseas, touring New Zealand in their campervan, or going fishing from their second home on Waiheke Island (which became their home proper once Ken retired). During the nearly four decades I’ve known the family, I ran into Ken and Betty all over the place – in Christchurch, at their Papatoetoe and Waiheke homes, and in Sydney (three of their four daughters have lived there for long periods; one still does). I have vivid memories of one particular Sydney occasion in the 1980s, when their family got together with that of my then partner (the Bairds and the Birds). They got on like a house on fire. Both families were matriarchies and the men were forced to trudge around, bringing up the rear, while the women emptied the Cronulla shops. Ken and I ended up squatting in shop doorways, sitting on a chilly bin of beer that we lugged everywhere with us and steadily consuming its contents (nobody batted an eyelid, this was Australia). We all had a great day, with a boat trip across to the beautiful beach at Bundeena and more than 20 of us had an uproarious night out in one of the monstrous clubs of the Ocker suburbs, where Warren Mitchell did his Alf Garnett act and brought the Aussies to their feet every time he told New Zealand jokes (the bastard – they were funny though). They were game for anything – we all spent one boisterous New Year’s Eve at a Darlinghurst gay bar in central Sydney.
I’ve still got photos of the long ago day on the beach at Bundeena and, ironically, Betty and I were reminiscing about it over that Waiheke lunch in November, not realising that it would be the last time we’d see each other. Betty Baird was a memorable woman, good fun and sparkling company. She will be sorely missed by her four daughters, Sharleen, Lynn, Sandy and Julie, four grandsons and all her friends, me included.
Philip Agee
- Murray Horton
To describe Philip Agee, who died in Havana in January 2008, aged 72, as a whistleblower is a complete misnomer and altogether too mild. Agee was a metaphorical bomb thrower (and the enemies he made for life among his former colleagues and political masters tried very hard to libel him as a literal bomb thrower too). He was one of the real global heroes of the latter decades of the 20th Century. By his courageous actions in exposing the names and operations of his erstwhile employer, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he will be forever remembered as a real American patriot (naturally he was vilified as a traitor, permanently stripped of his US passport, hounded out of his homeland and subjected to all sorts of threats).
His 1975 classic book “Inside The Company: CIA Diary” went off like a bomb during that turbulent era when the crimes of the CIA throughout the Third World and against its own people were being exposed. That book was absolutely essential reading for everyone at the time. Agee was not a one hit wonder. He went for broke, undergoing a profound political transformation that saw him spend the next several decades actively working against American imperialism throughout the world.
Born in Florida in 1935 into a comfortable Catholic family, Agee attended Jesuit schools and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1956. “Agee had initially seemed perfect CIA material: bright, sharp witted, bilingual and cultured” (Guardian Obituary, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: The man who blew the whistle on the CIA’s backing of military dictatorships”, Duncan Campbell). “He told the New York Times in 1974 that the CIA attempted to recruit him while he was at Notre Dame, offering a package plan that included Air Force duty. He said no but reconsidered while studying law at the University of Florida. He served as an Air Force officer from 1957 to 1960 and then began his CIA career” (LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in Press, Obituaries, 19/1/08; “Agent who lifted CIA lid”).
The Political Education Of A CIA Agent
Agee served as a CIA field officer in Latin America until he quit in 1969, profoundly disillusioned with what he had done and witnessed in the 12 years he worked for the Agency. "[The current attitude] is pretty much the attitude we had in the CIA during the 1950s. When we analysed the operational climate and all the political forces in any given country, we had our friends and we had our enemies. There was no one in between. The friends were centre and Rightwing social democrats, conservatives, liberals, in some cases all the way over to neo-fascists. The enemies were Leftwing social democrats, socialists, Communists, all the way to those advocating armed struggle.
"This is the way we saw the world. It was a strictly dualistic view of the political climate in any given country where we were operating. It was very much like what we are hearing today from Washington. It was not until I got down to Latin America that I began to get a political education. Whatever my ideas when I went down there, I saw things around me every day that influenced me. I saw the terrible economic and social conditions, and the injustices that could not be ignored.
"… The aim of our programmes was to support the status quo, to support the oligarchies of Latin America. These are the power structures that date back centuries, based on ownership of the land, of the financial resources, of the export-import system, and excluding the vast majority of the population. With all of our programmes, we were supporting these traditional power structures. What first caused me to turn against these people were the corruption and the greed that they exhibited in all areas of society. My ideas and attitudes began to change, and eventually I decided to resign from the CIA.
"… I was myself involved in some of these activities. I worked, for example, with the police in Latin American countries, and they were often involved in torture. I remember one Sunday morning in the office of the Chief of Police during a state of siege in Montevideo. My boss, the CIA Chief of Station in Uruguay was present, along with the local Army colonel in charge of anti-riot forces. We began to hear a low moaning coming through the walls and, at first, I thought it was a street vendor outside. But then it became clear that it was someone being tortured in another part of the building. As this horrible sound became louder and louder, the Police chief told the colonel to turn up a radio in order to drown out the groans and screams. There is no end to such examples, and Latin America was one of the places where the worst offences occurred. But it was not just Latin America… (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke. The Agee speech quoted was delivered in Stockholm, 24/9/01 and can be read in full at Appendix E at http://www.nnn.se/abf/abf.htm). “In 1968, Agee ran CIA activities during the Mexico City Olympics. When the Army massacred student protesters there, Agee told me he was tormented by the fact that the survivors were taken away and tortured to death” (Los Angeles Times; “Agee’s Faustian bargain”, Tim Rutten; reproduced in Press, 18/1/08).
He was also a romantic. “’Why did I leave the CIA?’, Agee once asked himself at a public meeting. ‘I fell in love with a woman who thought Che Guevara was the most wonderful man in the world’” (Guardian Obituary, ibid.). She was “a beautiful Brazilian Marxist who had been arrested and tortured by her country’s military, which was then cooperating with US intelligence” (Los Angeles Times; “Agee’s Faustian bargain”, ibid.). Together with his two young sons from his former American marriage, they moved to first Paris and then London in the early 1970s where he worked with the magazine Time Out and other publications to expose the CIA.
Bombshell Book
It was his bombshell 1975 book “Inside The Company: CIA Diary” which immortalised Agee. It detailed what he had done and what the CIA had done during his career with it throughout the 1960s in Latin America. Published in 20 languages it came complete with a 22 page list of 250 Agency operatives (all perfectly legal at that time). In 1978 he wrote “Dirty Work: The CIA In Western Europe”, followed up by a similarly titled book on the CIA in Africa, which exposed a total of another 2,000 CIA agents. He told the Guardian in 2007: “It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador – they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and US government. That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries” (Guardian Obituary, ibid.). “’I did not write the book for the KGB’ (the intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union), he told the New York Times in 1974. ‘I wrote it for revolutionary organisations in the United States, in Latin America and everywhere else’” LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in Press, Obituaries, 19/1/08; “Agent who lifted CIA lid”).
Ironically, Agee died the same month as Indonesia’s former dictator Suharto, the genocidal kleptocrat who was one the 20th Century’s worst mass murderers and whose 1960s’ slaughter of anywhere up to a million “Communists” was actively aided and abetted by the CIA. For the details of this still unpunished crime against humanity, check out the Anti-Bases Campaign’s newsletter Peace Researcher 25, March 2002, Special Issue, “Ghosts Of A Genocide: The CIA, Suharto And Terrorist Culture”, by Dennis Small (a writer who needs no introduction to Watchdog readers). It can be read online at: http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr25intr.htm.
“’Inside the Company’, though published in 1975, remains a basic reference on the methods and procedures by which the United States pursues and maintains its interests in the countries it seeks to control. In fact, I happened to be re-reading it a few years ago as Venezuela was being subjected to a classic destabilisation campaign whose evident purpose was to soften up the country for the coup against President Hugo Chávez which in due course took place a few months later.
“The basic procedure was all laid out in Philip's book: One could read his detailed account of how he and his colleagues had organised the downfall of Ecuador's President Velasco in 1961, and in the daily news follow the same tactics and procedures as they were being applied in Venezuela 40 years later. Then as now, the mainstream media played a central role in creating the necessary pre-coup atmosphere of diffuse anxiety, widespread malaise, and seething rebellion against a ‘dictator’ who happened to be democratically elected. Now as then - despite the numerous subsequent revelations of Philip and others who have followed his example - the same media have divulged little or nothing about the shadowy figures and agencies who orchestrate such processes. For the most part, the CIA and other instruments of US domination continue to operate behind a media smokescreen of wilful neglect and obfuscation” (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke).
Agee was and remains the CIA’s only ideological defector. He didn’t do it for money or to live in an enemy country (it wasn’t until his final years that he moved to Cuba, where he died). Other ex-spies have written books which have caused ripples (in 2001, the Anti-Bases Campaign hosted Mike Frost, a former Canadian spy turned author, on an NZ speaking tour) but none provoked the fury that Agee did, which lasted the rest of his life. He wasn’t a whistleblower and despite being libelled as a traitor (meaning one who betrays one’s country to an enemy), he was nothing like a traitor. If he was, that means the CIA sees the American people, indeed the world’s peoples, as their enemy, because that’s to whom Agee “betrayed” the CIA. He had become a political enemy to his former covert world, one who could do very real damage to it (which he did, as much as possible for as long as possible) and it, in turn, became his lifelong enemy.
The Price To Be Paid
He was never charged with anything because he hadn’t done anything illegal. In 1982 Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, specifically to halt Agee’s revelations. He didn’t name any more names after that. His 1987 book “On The Run” detailed the unrelenting campaign waged against him by the US government during and after his writing of “Inside The Company”. I reviewed that book in Watchdog 62, September 1989 (things moved slower in those pre-Internet days. The book was not available in NZ and I had to import a copy from Australia). Here’s an extract:
“By deliberately choosing to live in the West (not in Cuba, where he could have been set for life), he exposed himself to the full retribution of the open and covert arms of the US government and its satellites. Agee was hounded out of Britain (because he exposed joint US/UK intelligence destabilisation of Michael Manley’s government in Jamaica). He was subsequently expelled from Holland and France, and had a real hassle getting permission to live in (the former) West Germany. More than once he was arrested or held at airports. As a result of trumped up accusations at the time of the Iranian hostage situation (when US Embassy staff were held hostage from 1979-81, and CIA records found in the building made public) he was stripped of his US passport (which was never returned to him). He then travelled on first a Grenadian one and now a Nicaraguan one (the first one ceased when President Reagan sent US forces into Grenada, in the West Indies, in 1983 to overthrow its Government; the second one when the Sandinista government was electorally defeated in 1990, after enduring years of Reagan’s and Bush Senior’s contra war waged by the CIA and its local death squads). He has been subject to constant physical and electronic surveillance. He has had spies planted on him, and found their tools of trade (the famous cover photo of the bugged typewriter in “Inside The Company”). “On The Run” includes a photograph of Agee confronting one of these spies when she was found at her next deep cover assignment. She fled the scene on the spot. He has been called a KGB agent, a Cuban spy, a traitor and a murderer” (all of which were dredged up again in 2008 in mainstream media coverage of his death).
“Under the US Freedom of Information Act, Agee was able to discover the CIA had accumulated 18,000 pages of information on him. Agee was repeatedly blamed for the death of Richard Welch, the CIA Station Chief in Athens who was assassinated in 1975. ‘George Bush's father [George Bush Senior] came in as CIA Director in the month after the assassination and he intensified the campaign, spreading the lie that I was the cause of the assassination. His wife, Barbara, published her memoirs and she repeated the same lie, and this time I sued and won, in the sense that she was required to send me a letter in which she apologised and recognised what she wrote about me was false. They've tried to make this story stick for years. I never know what government hand or neocon hand is behind the allegations, and I don't pay too much attention, but I know I haven't been forgotten’" (Guardian Unlimited, 9/1/08; “Renegade CIA agent Agee dies”, Fred Attewill and agencies).
To return to my 1989 Watchdog review: “’On The Run’ is the aptly titled human record of his life in the CIA, whilst writing ‘Inside The Company’, and as an author, activist and fugitive in the years since. It is a life that has exacted a personal toll – the CIA encouraged his ex-wife to use their two sons as bait to lure him home. The constant pressure has broken up more than one subsequent relationship. He is now married to a ballerina/teacher – he found her totally different world an antidote to the paranoid, secretive one of spy and counterspy” (and marrying a German citizen had the added advantage of entitling him to a German passport).
“Life would have been much easier for Agee if he had been what he has been accused of – a defector and traitor. He could have had a Moscow dacha (this was written before the collapse of the Soviet Union just a couple of years later) or a Havana villa. But he chose to stay and fight, and take the heat. The world owes him a debt of thanks. Nor is he a wishy-washy reformer, who wants to clean up the CIA of a few bad apples. There have been several other agents who have gone public since Agee, written books, toured NZ in one case (Ralph McGehee, in the mid 1980s). They live in the US. But Agee is treated as an implacable enemy, because he has come full circle. He actively espouses revolutionary socialism, with Cuba as the model…He can be accused of naivety and paranoia (with great justification, in the latter case). But he has never swerved from his hard fought principles - that the secret world of US intelligence must be exposed and that the imperialism it serves must be fought worldwide. Read as a straight autobiography, ‘On The Run’ is riveting – as a chronicle of growing political awareness from someone in a position to hit his former masters very hard, it is invaluable”.
In the 1990s Agee set up an online travel company to bring visitors to Cuba. Most of his clients were Europeans or Canadians but many were Americans who risked hefty legal penalties for defying the US embargo (which, among things, prohibits US citizens from visiting this enemy pariah state just off its coast) that has been in place for nearly as long as Fidel Castro has been in power. “Agee was a great supporter of what he regarded as Cuba's progressive policies providing universal healthcare and education, and he regarded the current US President as the ‘antithesis’ of those achievements. Writing in the Guardian in 2007, he said: ‘All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate Cuba. Every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries’" (Guardian Unlimited, 9/1/08; “Renegade CIA agent Agee dies”, Fred Attewill and agencies). So it was fitting that Agee died, following surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer, in the country where he most felt at home. It is doubtless a matter of surprise and regret to his many powerful enemies that he died of natural causes.
Agee On “The War On Terror”
Agee remained an extremely astute analyst of US imperialism right up until the end of his life. Less than a fortnight after the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocities in the US, he gave a fascinating speech in Stockholm. "There has been some reporting, but not very much, about the fact that Osama bin Laden is a product of the United States. He is a creature of the CIA, having gone to work for it in Afghanistan. It was the largest operation ever carried out by the CIA, and its purpose was to bleed the (former) Soviet Union. Bin Laden was one of thousands who volunteered to fight with the mujahedin against the Soviets. As I recall, there were seven different groups. All seven were basically fundamentalist Islamic forces, who felt that the Soviet invasion defiled an Islamic country. Bin Laden was among those who did not stop fighting after the Soviets were expelled. In fact, he started laying plans for the future while the (1979-89) war against the Soviet Union was still going on. He was able to develop a worldwide network which today is operating in 60 countries or more. Very little of this background on bin Laden as a creation of the United States has been brought to public attention during the past two weeks. Most of what we have seen and heard is related to the 'solution', which is war. How much have we read or heard about those voices calling for alternative solutions to the problem of international terrorism? How much reporting have we seen on analyses of what has driven these people to such desperation that they carried out those attacks on September 11th?
"… Since the attacks on September 11th, I do not believe there has been any serious effort by the US mainstream press to review the history of US involvement in and support of terrorism. The news is monopolised by those who want to go to war. For that reason, I do not think it will be very easy to avoid this 'war on terrorism'. The US media are so powerful, and they fill our minds every day with what they think we should know and how we should interpret it. They are working hand-in-hand with the Government, and they share the same values. This is what makes it possible for them to earn a lot of money by selling advertising. After all, these are privately-owned institutions whose capital is supposed to yield a return for stockholders. They have to keep this constantly in mind, like any other corporation, and so they go along with the Government.
"…But in the decade since the end of the Cold War until September 11th, the US security establishment - the political class, the CIA, the people who fought the Cold War - had no real enemy to focus on. True, they had (the late) Saddam Hussein for a while, and they might have had a minor enemy here, another one there. But there was no real worldwide threat similar to that of the Cold War. Well, now it seems that they have one again. What this means is that the United States is going to be in this for quite some time. I have feeling that it is going to go on for ten or 15 years, because they are not going to wipe out international terrorism or something like bin Laden's group overnight. During this period, they are going to be doing the same things they did in the Cold War. We can already here it in such expression as: 'Whoever is not with us is against us'. They are going to be trying to use every bit of power they have to bring countries in line behind the United States.
"It also means important changes within the United States, because the war on terrorism will serve as the justification for restraints on civil liberties. They are building a huge crisis in the United States. They are building the psychological climate for broadbased acceptance of an ongoing war, for which there will be no quick resolution. There will be no great battles, either. During this period, there will be very little room for alternative views and alternative solutions in US news media. What are the alternatives? Well, one is obviously to address the question of why these people are doing these things: What are the roots of international terrorism? How does US foreign policy create this type of reaction? How does US support of everything that Israel does, including the oppression of the Palestinian people, influence fundamentalist Islamic groups?
"…Unfortunately, I suspect that there will be greater self-censorship by US media in order to line up behind the Government, however its policy of war may turn out. There is already talk of a personal identification system of some kind for the entire country, together with large-scale surveillance of the population -- especially immigrants, and Muslim immigrants in particular. There will be some opposition to this but, historically, the courts have usually gone along with the Government, even though they are theoretically supposed to be the guarantors of civil liberties…So, it will be possible to restrict, and even infringe upon, civil liberties and human rights in the US.
"It is early days to draw any conclusions about how all this is going to develop, since it is still in the planning stage. But in my opinion, if they carry out this military solution - with an attack or a series of attacks, or the establishment of military bases in Islamic countries - they will be doing exactly what bin Laden wants them to do. It would turn more and more people to fundamentalism and to his organisation… Certainly, the CIA and the other components of the US intelligence apparatus will be using all available technical means to locate and attack these groups, wherever they may be. They should certainly know where all the training bases are located, since they were established by the CIA, itself. But that will not be nearly enough" (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke. The Agee speech quoted was delivered in Stockholm, 24/9/01 and can be read in full at Appendix E at http://www.nnn.se/abf/abf.htm). Agee was spot on with his analysis and predictions, delivered right at the very start of the endless “War On Terror” being waged by the US and its faithful satellites, such as New Zealand.
The 1980s’ CAFCA Speaking Tour That Never Was
Readers might be forgiven for thinking that this is all very interesting but what’s it got to do with us? Rest assured that there is a CAFCA connection. To return, one final time, to my 1989 Watchdog review of “On The Run”: “For three years (1984-87) CAFCA worked to organise an Australasian speaking tour by Philip Agee. We put in a lot of work, raised several thousand dollars (one member gave us $1,000, which was serious money in the decade where I bought my present house for $25,000), and generated the kind of media controversy that attends anything to do with Agee. It all ended with a late night call from him in Madrid (no e-mail or faxes in those days), cancelling the tour to concentrate on a North American promotional tour for this book. It was his first trip home to the US in nearly 20 years, and it was fraught with peril for him. It was only after he cancelled that the servile Australian government announced that it wouldn’t have given him a visa anyway. Ironically, this book is not, and apparently will not be, available in NZ. I had to import my copy from Australia. If it had been available before I got involved in organising the abortive tour, it would have explained a lot more, indeed I would have been forewarned. Agee is a man under enormous pressure, who undertakes more international commitments than he can possibly fulfil”.
We invited him to tour NZ at that “tipping point” in NZ’s history, at the height of the “ANZUS Row”, when there were documented examples of the CIA working to destabilise the anti-nuclear Lange government (such as the notorious Maori Loans Affair, for instance), precisely because Agee would have been able to expose the modus operandi of his old employer at work in this country. It was never to be (Agee was incredibly apologetic in his cancellation phone call – not even lapsed Catholics lose the guilt) and all I’ve got to show for it is the fat pile of letters that he and I exchanged during those three years - the stamps recording his various temporary European homes as he was kept on the run - plus the publicity photos he sent us for the tour that never was. We had no further contact with him in the past couple of decades and I never did meet him, although Jeremy Agar, my CAFCA committee colleague and Watchdog reviews editor, did get to hear him speak at a Hamburg conference in the 80s. Agee prioritised his US return and, indeed, he was subsequently able to visit his homeland (where his two sons still live) several more times, without incident, and he was even able to revisit Britain, the country which cravenly expelled him in the 1970s.
Working on that tour was an exercise in fascination – for example, in the course of a trans-continental Australian rail holiday, I stitched together a network of usually bitterly opposed Left parties and groups who were prepared to work together on the Agee project – and frustration, which saw it postponed once by him, then finally cancelled. I don’t deny that I was monumentally pissed off when he pulled the plug on what had been three years work by me (his call came right on the eve of my birthday; the next day, out of the blue, my late father rang to announce that, as his present, he would, unsolicited, pay off my mortgage. That birthday, 21 years ago, is definitely right up there in my memory for its emotional rollercoaster ride). But you learn from such setbacks and life goes on, just as they always say it does. There was even a silver lining. CAFCA devoted one whole meeting to writing and posting refund cheques to donors, a significant proportion of whom told us to keep their money (so we actually made a profit on the tour that never was!). Looking back now, I marvel at how everything was organised then by good old letter, including complex international tours involving two countries and a speaker on the other side of the world who had no fixed abode.
An Invaluable Legacy
Philip Agee left an invaluable legacy. Not only did he write those several books exposing the CIA and thousands of its agents, he was also a founder of the wonderful US magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin (which later renamed itself Covert Action Quarterly). CAFCA holds nearly a complete set of these, filling three file boxes in my office, dating back to the second issue, in 1978. Agee himself featured in a lot of the early issues (e.g. number 8, in 1980 had a photo of him on the cover and was headed “The CIA Vs Philip Agee”). Sadly, and without explanation, Covert Action stopped publishing with number 78 in 2005. Its Website is still there at http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/ but it hasn’t been updated since 2005.
Philip Agee is owed an enormous vote of thanks from all the peoples of the world, including New Zealand. Where is his like among the kidnappers, torturers and murderers of today’s CIA? In Agee’s day the crimes of the CIA were confined to the Third World and hidden from its own people. Now, the culture of imperial impunity means that these crimes are brazenly committed in full view of everyone. So, the need to oppose and expose this criminal enterprise is greater than ever. Right up until his death, Philip Agee did more than his share in striking blows against the Empire. The struggle continues!
To describe Philip Agee, who died in Havana in January 2008, aged 72, as a whistleblower is a complete misnomer and altogether too mild. Agee was a metaphorical bomb thrower (and the enemies he made for life among his former colleagues and political masters tried very hard to libel him as a literal bomb thrower too). He was one of the real global heroes of the latter decades of the 20th Century. By his courageous actions in exposing the names and operations of his erstwhile employer, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he will be forever remembered as a real American patriot (naturally he was vilified as a traitor, permanently stripped of his US passport, hounded out of his homeland and subjected to all sorts of threats).
His 1975 classic book “Inside The Company: CIA Diary” went off like a bomb during that turbulent era when the crimes of the CIA throughout the Third World and against its own people were being exposed. That book was absolutely essential reading for everyone at the time. Agee was not a one hit wonder. He went for broke, undergoing a profound political transformation that saw him spend the next several decades actively working against American imperialism throughout the world.
Born in Florida in 1935 into a comfortable Catholic family, Agee attended Jesuit schools and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1956. “Agee had initially seemed perfect CIA material: bright, sharp witted, bilingual and cultured” (Guardian Obituary, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: The man who blew the whistle on the CIA’s backing of military dictatorships”, Duncan Campbell). “He told the New York Times in 1974 that the CIA attempted to recruit him while he was at Notre Dame, offering a package plan that included Air Force duty. He said no but reconsidered while studying law at the University of Florida. He served as an Air Force officer from 1957 to 1960 and then began his CIA career” (LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in Press, Obituaries, 19/1/08; “Agent who lifted CIA lid”).
The Political Education Of A CIA Agent
Agee served as a CIA field officer in Latin America until he quit in 1969, profoundly disillusioned with what he had done and witnessed in the 12 years he worked for the Agency. "[The current attitude] is pretty much the attitude we had in the CIA during the 1950s. When we analysed the operational climate and all the political forces in any given country, we had our friends and we had our enemies. There was no one in between. The friends were centre and Rightwing social democrats, conservatives, liberals, in some cases all the way over to neo-fascists. The enemies were Leftwing social democrats, socialists, Communists, all the way to those advocating armed struggle.
"This is the way we saw the world. It was a strictly dualistic view of the political climate in any given country where we were operating. It was very much like what we are hearing today from Washington. It was not until I got down to Latin America that I began to get a political education. Whatever my ideas when I went down there, I saw things around me every day that influenced me. I saw the terrible economic and social conditions, and the injustices that could not be ignored.
"… The aim of our programmes was to support the status quo, to support the oligarchies of Latin America. These are the power structures that date back centuries, based on ownership of the land, of the financial resources, of the export-import system, and excluding the vast majority of the population. With all of our programmes, we were supporting these traditional power structures. What first caused me to turn against these people were the corruption and the greed that they exhibited in all areas of society. My ideas and attitudes began to change, and eventually I decided to resign from the CIA.
"… I was myself involved in some of these activities. I worked, for example, with the police in Latin American countries, and they were often involved in torture. I remember one Sunday morning in the office of the Chief of Police during a state of siege in Montevideo. My boss, the CIA Chief of Station in Uruguay was present, along with the local Army colonel in charge of anti-riot forces. We began to hear a low moaning coming through the walls and, at first, I thought it was a street vendor outside. But then it became clear that it was someone being tortured in another part of the building. As this horrible sound became louder and louder, the Police chief told the colonel to turn up a radio in order to drown out the groans and screams. There is no end to such examples, and Latin America was one of the places where the worst offences occurred. But it was not just Latin America… (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke. The Agee speech quoted was delivered in Stockholm, 24/9/01 and can be read in full at Appendix E at http://www.nnn.se/abf/abf.htm). “In 1968, Agee ran CIA activities during the Mexico City Olympics. When the Army massacred student protesters there, Agee told me he was tormented by the fact that the survivors were taken away and tortured to death” (Los Angeles Times; “Agee’s Faustian bargain”, Tim Rutten; reproduced in Press, 18/1/08).
He was also a romantic. “’Why did I leave the CIA?’, Agee once asked himself at a public meeting. ‘I fell in love with a woman who thought Che Guevara was the most wonderful man in the world’” (Guardian Obituary, ibid.). She was “a beautiful Brazilian Marxist who had been arrested and tortured by her country’s military, which was then cooperating with US intelligence” (Los Angeles Times; “Agee’s Faustian bargain”, ibid.). Together with his two young sons from his former American marriage, they moved to first Paris and then London in the early 1970s where he worked with the magazine Time Out and other publications to expose the CIA.
Bombshell Book
It was his bombshell 1975 book “Inside The Company: CIA Diary” which immortalised Agee. It detailed what he had done and what the CIA had done during his career with it throughout the 1960s in Latin America. Published in 20 languages it came complete with a 22 page list of 250 Agency operatives (all perfectly legal at that time). In 1978 he wrote “Dirty Work: The CIA In Western Europe”, followed up by a similarly titled book on the CIA in Africa, which exposed a total of another 2,000 CIA agents. He told the Guardian in 2007: “It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador – they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and US government. That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries” (Guardian Obituary, ibid.). “’I did not write the book for the KGB’ (the intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union), he told the New York Times in 1974. ‘I wrote it for revolutionary organisations in the United States, in Latin America and everywhere else’” LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in Press, Obituaries, 19/1/08; “Agent who lifted CIA lid”).
Ironically, Agee died the same month as Indonesia’s former dictator Suharto, the genocidal kleptocrat who was one the 20th Century’s worst mass murderers and whose 1960s’ slaughter of anywhere up to a million “Communists” was actively aided and abetted by the CIA. For the details of this still unpunished crime against humanity, check out the Anti-Bases Campaign’s newsletter Peace Researcher 25, March 2002, Special Issue, “Ghosts Of A Genocide: The CIA, Suharto And Terrorist Culture”, by Dennis Small (a writer who needs no introduction to Watchdog readers). It can be read online at: http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr25intr.htm.
“’Inside the Company’, though published in 1975, remains a basic reference on the methods and procedures by which the United States pursues and maintains its interests in the countries it seeks to control. In fact, I happened to be re-reading it a few years ago as Venezuela was being subjected to a classic destabilisation campaign whose evident purpose was to soften up the country for the coup against President Hugo Chávez which in due course took place a few months later.
“The basic procedure was all laid out in Philip's book: One could read his detailed account of how he and his colleagues had organised the downfall of Ecuador's President Velasco in 1961, and in the daily news follow the same tactics and procedures as they were being applied in Venezuela 40 years later. Then as now, the mainstream media played a central role in creating the necessary pre-coup atmosphere of diffuse anxiety, widespread malaise, and seething rebellion against a ‘dictator’ who happened to be democratically elected. Now as then - despite the numerous subsequent revelations of Philip and others who have followed his example - the same media have divulged little or nothing about the shadowy figures and agencies who orchestrate such processes. For the most part, the CIA and other instruments of US domination continue to operate behind a media smokescreen of wilful neglect and obfuscation” (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke).
Agee was and remains the CIA’s only ideological defector. He didn’t do it for money or to live in an enemy country (it wasn’t until his final years that he moved to Cuba, where he died). Other ex-spies have written books which have caused ripples (in 2001, the Anti-Bases Campaign hosted Mike Frost, a former Canadian spy turned author, on an NZ speaking tour) but none provoked the fury that Agee did, which lasted the rest of his life. He wasn’t a whistleblower and despite being libelled as a traitor (meaning one who betrays one’s country to an enemy), he was nothing like a traitor. If he was, that means the CIA sees the American people, indeed the world’s peoples, as their enemy, because that’s to whom Agee “betrayed” the CIA. He had become a political enemy to his former covert world, one who could do very real damage to it (which he did, as much as possible for as long as possible) and it, in turn, became his lifelong enemy.
The Price To Be Paid
He was never charged with anything because he hadn’t done anything illegal. In 1982 Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, specifically to halt Agee’s revelations. He didn’t name any more names after that. His 1987 book “On The Run” detailed the unrelenting campaign waged against him by the US government during and after his writing of “Inside The Company”. I reviewed that book in Watchdog 62, September 1989 (things moved slower in those pre-Internet days. The book was not available in NZ and I had to import a copy from Australia). Here’s an extract:
“By deliberately choosing to live in the West (not in Cuba, where he could have been set for life), he exposed himself to the full retribution of the open and covert arms of the US government and its satellites. Agee was hounded out of Britain (because he exposed joint US/UK intelligence destabilisation of Michael Manley’s government in Jamaica). He was subsequently expelled from Holland and France, and had a real hassle getting permission to live in (the former) West Germany. More than once he was arrested or held at airports. As a result of trumped up accusations at the time of the Iranian hostage situation (when US Embassy staff were held hostage from 1979-81, and CIA records found in the building made public) he was stripped of his US passport (which was never returned to him). He then travelled on first a Grenadian one and now a Nicaraguan one (the first one ceased when President Reagan sent US forces into Grenada, in the West Indies, in 1983 to overthrow its Government; the second one when the Sandinista government was electorally defeated in 1990, after enduring years of Reagan’s and Bush Senior’s contra war waged by the CIA and its local death squads). He has been subject to constant physical and electronic surveillance. He has had spies planted on him, and found their tools of trade (the famous cover photo of the bugged typewriter in “Inside The Company”). “On The Run” includes a photograph of Agee confronting one of these spies when she was found at her next deep cover assignment. She fled the scene on the spot. He has been called a KGB agent, a Cuban spy, a traitor and a murderer” (all of which were dredged up again in 2008 in mainstream media coverage of his death).
“Under the US Freedom of Information Act, Agee was able to discover the CIA had accumulated 18,000 pages of information on him. Agee was repeatedly blamed for the death of Richard Welch, the CIA Station Chief in Athens who was assassinated in 1975. ‘George Bush's father [George Bush Senior] came in as CIA Director in the month after the assassination and he intensified the campaign, spreading the lie that I was the cause of the assassination. His wife, Barbara, published her memoirs and she repeated the same lie, and this time I sued and won, in the sense that she was required to send me a letter in which she apologised and recognised what she wrote about me was false. They've tried to make this story stick for years. I never know what government hand or neocon hand is behind the allegations, and I don't pay too much attention, but I know I haven't been forgotten’" (Guardian Unlimited, 9/1/08; “Renegade CIA agent Agee dies”, Fred Attewill and agencies).
To return to my 1989 Watchdog review: “’On The Run’ is the aptly titled human record of his life in the CIA, whilst writing ‘Inside The Company’, and as an author, activist and fugitive in the years since. It is a life that has exacted a personal toll – the CIA encouraged his ex-wife to use their two sons as bait to lure him home. The constant pressure has broken up more than one subsequent relationship. He is now married to a ballerina/teacher – he found her totally different world an antidote to the paranoid, secretive one of spy and counterspy” (and marrying a German citizen had the added advantage of entitling him to a German passport).
“Life would have been much easier for Agee if he had been what he has been accused of – a defector and traitor. He could have had a Moscow dacha (this was written before the collapse of the Soviet Union just a couple of years later) or a Havana villa. But he chose to stay and fight, and take the heat. The world owes him a debt of thanks. Nor is he a wishy-washy reformer, who wants to clean up the CIA of a few bad apples. There have been several other agents who have gone public since Agee, written books, toured NZ in one case (Ralph McGehee, in the mid 1980s). They live in the US. But Agee is treated as an implacable enemy, because he has come full circle. He actively espouses revolutionary socialism, with Cuba as the model…He can be accused of naivety and paranoia (with great justification, in the latter case). But he has never swerved from his hard fought principles - that the secret world of US intelligence must be exposed and that the imperialism it serves must be fought worldwide. Read as a straight autobiography, ‘On The Run’ is riveting – as a chronicle of growing political awareness from someone in a position to hit his former masters very hard, it is invaluable”.
In the 1990s Agee set up an online travel company to bring visitors to Cuba. Most of his clients were Europeans or Canadians but many were Americans who risked hefty legal penalties for defying the US embargo (which, among things, prohibits US citizens from visiting this enemy pariah state just off its coast) that has been in place for nearly as long as Fidel Castro has been in power. “Agee was a great supporter of what he regarded as Cuba's progressive policies providing universal healthcare and education, and he regarded the current US President as the ‘antithesis’ of those achievements. Writing in the Guardian in 2007, he said: ‘All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate Cuba. Every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries’" (Guardian Unlimited, 9/1/08; “Renegade CIA agent Agee dies”, Fred Attewill and agencies). So it was fitting that Agee died, following surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer, in the country where he most felt at home. It is doubtless a matter of surprise and regret to his many powerful enemies that he died of natural causes.
Agee On “The War On Terror”
Agee remained an extremely astute analyst of US imperialism right up until the end of his life. Less than a fortnight after the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocities in the US, he gave a fascinating speech in Stockholm. "There has been some reporting, but not very much, about the fact that Osama bin Laden is a product of the United States. He is a creature of the CIA, having gone to work for it in Afghanistan. It was the largest operation ever carried out by the CIA, and its purpose was to bleed the (former) Soviet Union. Bin Laden was one of thousands who volunteered to fight with the mujahedin against the Soviets. As I recall, there were seven different groups. All seven were basically fundamentalist Islamic forces, who felt that the Soviet invasion defiled an Islamic country. Bin Laden was among those who did not stop fighting after the Soviets were expelled. In fact, he started laying plans for the future while the (1979-89) war against the Soviet Union was still going on. He was able to develop a worldwide network which today is operating in 60 countries or more. Very little of this background on bin Laden as a creation of the United States has been brought to public attention during the past two weeks. Most of what we have seen and heard is related to the 'solution', which is war. How much have we read or heard about those voices calling for alternative solutions to the problem of international terrorism? How much reporting have we seen on analyses of what has driven these people to such desperation that they carried out those attacks on September 11th?
"… Since the attacks on September 11th, I do not believe there has been any serious effort by the US mainstream press to review the history of US involvement in and support of terrorism. The news is monopolised by those who want to go to war. For that reason, I do not think it will be very easy to avoid this 'war on terrorism'. The US media are so powerful, and they fill our minds every day with what they think we should know and how we should interpret it. They are working hand-in-hand with the Government, and they share the same values. This is what makes it possible for them to earn a lot of money by selling advertising. After all, these are privately-owned institutions whose capital is supposed to yield a return for stockholders. They have to keep this constantly in mind, like any other corporation, and so they go along with the Government.
"…But in the decade since the end of the Cold War until September 11th, the US security establishment - the political class, the CIA, the people who fought the Cold War - had no real enemy to focus on. True, they had (the late) Saddam Hussein for a while, and they might have had a minor enemy here, another one there. But there was no real worldwide threat similar to that of the Cold War. Well, now it seems that they have one again. What this means is that the United States is going to be in this for quite some time. I have feeling that it is going to go on for ten or 15 years, because they are not going to wipe out international terrorism or something like bin Laden's group overnight. During this period, they are going to be doing the same things they did in the Cold War. We can already here it in such expression as: 'Whoever is not with us is against us'. They are going to be trying to use every bit of power they have to bring countries in line behind the United States.
"It also means important changes within the United States, because the war on terrorism will serve as the justification for restraints on civil liberties. They are building a huge crisis in the United States. They are building the psychological climate for broadbased acceptance of an ongoing war, for which there will be no quick resolution. There will be no great battles, either. During this period, there will be very little room for alternative views and alternative solutions in US news media. What are the alternatives? Well, one is obviously to address the question of why these people are doing these things: What are the roots of international terrorism? How does US foreign policy create this type of reaction? How does US support of everything that Israel does, including the oppression of the Palestinian people, influence fundamentalist Islamic groups?
"…Unfortunately, I suspect that there will be greater self-censorship by US media in order to line up behind the Government, however its policy of war may turn out. There is already talk of a personal identification system of some kind for the entire country, together with large-scale surveillance of the population -- especially immigrants, and Muslim immigrants in particular. There will be some opposition to this but, historically, the courts have usually gone along with the Government, even though they are theoretically supposed to be the guarantors of civil liberties…So, it will be possible to restrict, and even infringe upon, civil liberties and human rights in the US.
"It is early days to draw any conclusions about how all this is going to develop, since it is still in the planning stage. But in my opinion, if they carry out this military solution - with an attack or a series of attacks, or the establishment of military bases in Islamic countries - they will be doing exactly what bin Laden wants them to do. It would turn more and more people to fundamentalism and to his organisation… Certainly, the CIA and the other components of the US intelligence apparatus will be using all available technical means to locate and attack these groups, wherever they may be. They should certainly know where all the training bases are located, since they were established by the CIA, itself. But that will not be nearly enough" (Nordic News Network, 10/1/08; “Philip Agee: Let Us Now Praise An [In]Famous Man”, Al Burke. The Agee speech quoted was delivered in Stockholm, 24/9/01 and can be read in full at Appendix E at http://www.nnn.se/abf/abf.htm). Agee was spot on with his analysis and predictions, delivered right at the very start of the endless “War On Terror” being waged by the US and its faithful satellites, such as New Zealand.
The 1980s’ CAFCA Speaking Tour That Never Was
Readers might be forgiven for thinking that this is all very interesting but what’s it got to do with us? Rest assured that there is a CAFCA connection. To return, one final time, to my 1989 Watchdog review of “On The Run”: “For three years (1984-87) CAFCA worked to organise an Australasian speaking tour by Philip Agee. We put in a lot of work, raised several thousand dollars (one member gave us $1,000, which was serious money in the decade where I bought my present house for $25,000), and generated the kind of media controversy that attends anything to do with Agee. It all ended with a late night call from him in Madrid (no e-mail or faxes in those days), cancelling the tour to concentrate on a North American promotional tour for this book. It was his first trip home to the US in nearly 20 years, and it was fraught with peril for him. It was only after he cancelled that the servile Australian government announced that it wouldn’t have given him a visa anyway. Ironically, this book is not, and apparently will not be, available in NZ. I had to import my copy from Australia. If it had been available before I got involved in organising the abortive tour, it would have explained a lot more, indeed I would have been forewarned. Agee is a man under enormous pressure, who undertakes more international commitments than he can possibly fulfil”.
We invited him to tour NZ at that “tipping point” in NZ’s history, at the height of the “ANZUS Row”, when there were documented examples of the CIA working to destabilise the anti-nuclear Lange government (such as the notorious Maori Loans Affair, for instance), precisely because Agee would have been able to expose the modus operandi of his old employer at work in this country. It was never to be (Agee was incredibly apologetic in his cancellation phone call – not even lapsed Catholics lose the guilt) and all I’ve got to show for it is the fat pile of letters that he and I exchanged during those three years - the stamps recording his various temporary European homes as he was kept on the run - plus the publicity photos he sent us for the tour that never was. We had no further contact with him in the past couple of decades and I never did meet him, although Jeremy Agar, my CAFCA committee colleague and Watchdog reviews editor, did get to hear him speak at a Hamburg conference in the 80s. Agee prioritised his US return and, indeed, he was subsequently able to visit his homeland (where his two sons still live) several more times, without incident, and he was even able to revisit Britain, the country which cravenly expelled him in the 1970s.
Working on that tour was an exercise in fascination – for example, in the course of a trans-continental Australian rail holiday, I stitched together a network of usually bitterly opposed Left parties and groups who were prepared to work together on the Agee project – and frustration, which saw it postponed once by him, then finally cancelled. I don’t deny that I was monumentally pissed off when he pulled the plug on what had been three years work by me (his call came right on the eve of my birthday; the next day, out of the blue, my late father rang to announce that, as his present, he would, unsolicited, pay off my mortgage. That birthday, 21 years ago, is definitely right up there in my memory for its emotional rollercoaster ride). But you learn from such setbacks and life goes on, just as they always say it does. There was even a silver lining. CAFCA devoted one whole meeting to writing and posting refund cheques to donors, a significant proportion of whom told us to keep their money (so we actually made a profit on the tour that never was!). Looking back now, I marvel at how everything was organised then by good old letter, including complex international tours involving two countries and a speaker on the other side of the world who had no fixed abode.
An Invaluable Legacy
Philip Agee left an invaluable legacy. Not only did he write those several books exposing the CIA and thousands of its agents, he was also a founder of the wonderful US magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin (which later renamed itself Covert Action Quarterly). CAFCA holds nearly a complete set of these, filling three file boxes in my office, dating back to the second issue, in 1978. Agee himself featured in a lot of the early issues (e.g. number 8, in 1980 had a photo of him on the cover and was headed “The CIA Vs Philip Agee”). Sadly, and without explanation, Covert Action stopped publishing with number 78 in 2005. Its Website is still there at http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/ but it hasn’t been updated since 2005.
Philip Agee is owed an enormous vote of thanks from all the peoples of the world, including New Zealand. Where is his like among the kidnappers, torturers and murderers of today’s CIA? In Agee’s day the crimes of the CIA were confined to the Third World and hidden from its own people. Now, the culture of imperial impunity means that these crimes are brazenly committed in full view of everyone. So, the need to oppose and expose this criminal enterprise is greater than ever. Right up until his death, Philip Agee did more than his share in striking blows against the Empire. The struggle continues!
Obituary - ALLAN YEOMAN
- Murray Horton
As is the case with all too many CAFCA members, we knew nothing at all about Allan Yeoman. We didn’t even know that he had died (in September 2007, aged 93) until his December Watchdog was returned to us from his Katikati rest home, in the Bay of Plenty. We’d never met him and I’d only ever spoken to him once, on the phone – I had to ring him, at that home, because I couldn’t read his handwriting advising his change of address. When I said my name, he replied “the man himself”, so I deduced that he enjoyed reading Watchdog.
A quick Google search greatly whetted my appetite. Here was a man who turned out to have been one of NZ’s greatest prisoner of war (POW) camp escapers of WW2, having written a book about it in the 1990s and starred in the 2006 TVNZ series Kiwis At War. Nor was he one of those boring old buggers who dine out on their war exploits for the rest of their lives. Allan had lived a very full peacetime life and as recently as the mid 90s had managed to wedge himself firmly up the noses of the fundamentalists in his beloved Presbyterian Church (and the broader Protestant churches), by publishing a booklet which caused such a reaction that the hurt was never healed in his lifetime and he refused to have his funeral held in his parish church that he had served for decades. Then I realised that he was pushing 90 when he first joined CAFCA, in 2003. He remained a member until his death and he sent donations to both us and to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which supplies my income.
Having had a father who was also a POW escaper (although without any of the derring do of Allan’s multiple escapes) and being myself a lapsed Presbyterian from donkey’s years ago, I could relate to at least part of his life story. I set out to find out as much as I could and I am indebted to the staff of his retirement home and to Lauren Owens of the Bay of Plenty Times, who very promptly and without demur, supplied its October 2007 obituary and photos.
Fighting Fascism: Serial Wartime Escaper
“Mr Yeoman was born in 1914 in Opouriao Valley, inland from Whakatane, and went to school in the Eastern Bay before finishing at Auckland Grammar. He returned to the Bay to farm and also took up singing - a lifelong interest - and joined the 6th Hauraki Regiment, earning the rank of lieutenant in the years leading up to the (Second World) war. The (Presbyterian) church was also a key part of his life and it was at Bible class that he met Nellie Reid. When war broke out in 1939 he left his sweetheart Nell behind and joined the 21st Battalion as a platoon commander. He served in Greece, Crete - he was evacuated on the last ship out after the ill-fated battle - and Egypt before being captured in Libya in 1941. He spent much of the next 3 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Italy, Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia. As an officer, he was committed to trying to escape, and succeeded a couple of times before being recaptured. His escape attempts were retold in a television documentary (in 2006). More than once he faced death, recalling one incident in (the former) Yugoslavia where, after being recaptured following two months on the run with the partisans, he and his fellow POWs were told: ‘You will be shot in the morning. You are all dead men’. He lived to tell the tale and committed it to print in 1991 when he published his wartime memoirs, ‘The Long Road to Freedom’” (Katikati Advertiser, 9/10/07, Lauren Owens).
Allan Yeoman’s extraordinary feats as an escaper were the subject of an episode of the 2006 series “Kiwis At War” entitled “Allan Yeoman: The Man With Nine Lives”. The publicity blurb on TVNZ’s Website reads: “After a disastrous start to World War Two, Yeoman spent three and a half years inside, trying to get out. This episode of Kiwis At War runs the roller coaster of his capture and several bold escape attempts. ‘Standard book of field service regulations says that it is the duty of an officer in the British Army, once captured, to escape’, declares 91 year old Katikati resident Allan Yeoman. So he did.
“On more than one occasion he could very easily have been shot. Although he was imprisoned in Italy, Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia, Allan Yeoman never lost his determination to be free. He survived some rather dodgy escape plans, one of which saw him escaping from a four story building using little more than a rope of sheets. In a heart-wrenching moment, dangling 15 metres off the ground, Allan was spotted by the armed guard.
"’And the only reason I'm here today’, laughs Yeoman, ‘is that the sentry was late back for duty from the town, and instead of going to the barracks to get his rifle, he went past the armoury and grabbed the first rifle he could see, not knowing it was faulty’. Yeoman and his comrade got away, and spent nearly three weeks getting to the coast, only to be spotted by an Italian guard lurking behind a building. ‘We were sent back on the train - it took 19 days to get to the coast, and nine hours to get back’, he smiles. At the time, his escape was a record. He was met at the camp gates by the Commandant, who offered a warm handshake with one hand, but kept a pistol firmly gripped in his other. ‘There was a fair bit of fellow feeling between soldiers. It was as though 'we didn't start his war, and on the battlefield you are my enemy, but that's no reason why I should dislike you'.
“But his escapades soon got Allan bundled off to the Italian equivalent of Colditz (the German maximum security prison reserved for escapers and high risk POWs. Ed.), the imposing Gavi Castle. Now labelled 'molto pericoloso' - very dangerous - Yeoman was shifted around camps, and into Austria. He made another audacious escape by posing as a Frenchman and fled through the mountains, where he spent time fighting with the Yugoslav partisans. Captured again on his way back to Italy, Yeoman narrowly avoided a firing squad, and saw out the rest of the war in Germany. It was a tremendously long road to freedom, that makes Allan Yeoman one of the greatest Kiwi escape artists of the war” (http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/442303/843525). In Matthew Wright’s 2006 book “Escape! New Zealanders’ World War 2 Stories”, Allan detailed the escapers’ methods. “We had three fairly distinct approaches: tunnelling – slow, laborious but relatively safe; finesse – requiring disguise, acting ability and a quick wit; and surprise – often needing good judgement, physical fitness and a willingness to take a risk”.
“…By the time Mr Yeoman returned to New Zealand in 1945 with the rank of major, he had been away for six years and, as he recalled years later, he and Nell ‘met as strangers’. ‘We lost all the years we should have had together’. The couple married and moved to Katikati where they bought a large dairy farm... Mr Yeoman was soon involved in local affairs, convincing the local catchment authority to raise the (local) stream's stop banks. The resulting walkway to the harbour now bears his name. His name also graces the pensioner flats… which he pushed hard for in the early 1980s. ‘If anything is to take my name I am happy for it to be these units’, he said modestly at the time of their opening in 1983. By then Mr Yeoman was at the end of 15 years' local government service. He had joined Katikati Town Committee in 1968 and was elected to Tauranga County Council in 1977, serving two terms. Other than pensioner housing, his achievements included modernising the sewerage system and other infrastructure, and the purchase of Katikati saleyards to be the nucleus of the industrial zone. Mr Yeoman was also a long-time Rotarian, serving a term as president, and was involved with Federated Farmers, while Mrs Yeoman, who died in 1999, was a nurse during the war and later became patron of the Red Cross in Katikati.
Fighting Fundamentalism: A Breach Which Never Healed
“In 1989, Mr Yeoman was formally thanked by St Paul's for his 35 years' service to the Presbyterian Church, 29 as a session clerk. But more than 20 years earlier, around 1967, Mr Yeoman had already begun to question the role of the church, prompted in part by the heresy trial of Lloyd Geering. In a 2006 interview Mr Yeoman said, ‘I found myself agreeing with him and at odds with many in my church'’. It would not be until 1995 that he made his liberal views known widely, with the publication of the 48 page booklet, ‘Where Have All The Christians Gone? (And What Should We Tell Our Children?)’. Mr Yeoman was alarmed by changes in religious observance, particularly what he saw as the rise of charismatic fundamentalism, something he described as a step backwards towards pre-science Christianity. More traditional minded members of the church felt feelings of loss, grief and anger, he said. In the booklet, he predicted that by the year 2000 the church could become ‘an interesting relic ... a warm and loving service club with strange outdated beliefs and customs, an anachronism, irrelevant'” (Katikati Advertiser, 9/10/07, Lauren Owens). Lloyd Geering favourably reviewed the booklet: “….Yeoman has observed how ‘some fundamentalists… have set out to take over the structures of the established churches’, leaving many people grieving for the loss of the more open church they once knew” (Sea Of Faith NZ Newsletter 14, December 1995).
“The booklet prompted unprecedented debate in the letters pages of the Katikati Advertiser and accusations of heresy by at least one local minister. The rift that developed was never repaired and after Mr Yeoman died…, his funeral was held not at St Paul's Presbyterian Church, but at the Katikati RSA…. It may be argued now that Mr Yeoman's book had no long-lasting effect on the church, but the division affected him personally for the rest of his life. He continued to attend St Paul's until about 2000 before the differences between him and the session became too great and the breach became permanent. His daughter Judy, who is a lawyer in Auckland, said the controversy made him very sad, but he never wavered from his views. ‘He was deeply hurt at how they treated him. He felt he could never go back to the church. Before he died, he said to me `I am not under any circumstances to have my funeral at St Paul's Church'. Instead, he aligned himself with the Sea of Faith, a global non-denominational organisation for liberal-minded Christians. ‘He had a huge faith, he never lost his belief’, Judy said. He read extensively and was reading the latest book by the Sea of Faith's most prominent figure, Bishop John Spong, just weeks before he died” (Katikati Advertiser, 9/10/07, Lauren Owens). That obituary concluded: “The controversy could not overshadow a lifetime of outstanding service to his family, his community and his country”.
It was only after all this that Allan joined CAFCA, in 2003, aged nearly 90, and remained a member until his death four years later. It never ceases to amaze me just what an interesting bunch we have for members. What a life, fighting fascists and fundamentalists (who have more than a little in common)! We never knew him but we owe him a vote of thanks for a life well lived and a fight well fought.
Reg Duder
Following is an obituary for Reg Duder - a long serving member of the CAFCA committee and a real character.
REG DUDER
- Murray Horton
This is a sad first – namely having to write an obituary for a colleague on the CAFCA committee. Reg Duder, who died in January 2008 aged 79 (he just made it to a few days past his birthday), had been a CAFCA member since 1992 and had been on the committee for nearly all of that time. Reg had been getting sicker and sicker for several years and was housebound with frequent spells in hospital. We hadn’t seen him at a committee meeting outside his place for a good four or five years and the last time any of us saw him outside of his place for anything was when he attended Wolfgang Rosenberg’s February 2007 funeral. He was absolutely determined to attend that and pay his respects, despite being wheelchair bound and on oxygen. Sheer bloody pigheadedness kept him going for so long, indeed he hosted the final committee meeting for 2007, just days before Christmas, despite the fact that he had, by then, progressed to terminal kidney failure (and his legs were so swollen that he couldn’t wear pants, let alone any footwear. It made for a memorable meeting, and was the last time his committee colleagues saw him alive). It’s important to stress that Reg was more than a colleague, he was a good friend. I was very fond indeed of the old bugger.
It would be quicker to list what he didn’t have wrong with him rather than what he did have wrong with him. He had been a chain smoker nearly all his life – the photo of the dashing moustachioed young fellow in Air Force uniform on the cover of his funeral programme was almost unrecognisable except for the smoke in his hand. Until very recent years he used to preside over committee meetings at his place with his ubiquitous smoke (the rest of us being non-smokers). I used to get chastised by my ex-smoker wife when I tiptoed into the bedroom after those meetings because the smell of smoke on my hair and clothes used to wake her up. She always knew when I’d been to Reg’s. In the past decade CAFCA has joined an international network to fight tobacco transnationals and British American Tobacco NZ has been a regular Roger Award finalist, including in 2007 (when it was joint runner up; BAT has never been a winner yet). I think Reg reckoned that we were getting at him, although he did allow that he was the victim of an addiction whereby he had been hooked for the profit of the tobacco companies. To my astonishment, he did actually give up completely a couple of years ago, just went cold turkey. But the damage had been long done, and his lungs were absolutely buggered, necessitating him being permanently on oxygen. As long as I knew him, he had a smoker’s cough and accompanying hoick of truly Olympic proportions. But the old bugger would tell me with a straight face that smoking was not the cause of his multitude of health problems. One thing that should be made clear – Reg’s body may have been ruined in his final years but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He played a full part in what was going on around him, including the CAFCA committee, to the best of his abilities.
Once Met, Never Forgotten
Inevitably, somebody like Reg gets described as a “character”. In his case, that’s like saying the Pope’s a Catholic and does nothing to convey the unforgettable essence of the man. A “character” is a bit player in the drama of life. Reg was the full blown three act opera. Everything about him was distinctive, starting with his physical appearance – a lived in face that would have made a great Toby jug, with a boozer’s nose (which was strictly hereditary, as Reg didn’t drink) and a fearsome surgical scar that slashed across his bald skull (the result of the brain haemorrhage nearly 30 years ago that damn near killed him and sent him religious); his habit, winter or summer, of wearing only a flimsy short sleeved shirt, unbuttoned down his chest; usually in shorts, all the better to show off his knobbly knees. Reg was a classic old Kiwi joker of his generation. To use a very out of fashion phrase, he was a “man’s man” (with all that implies, good and bad). He’d give my late father a good run for the title of the most spectacularly politically incorrect old bugger that I’ve ever known (and I’ve known more than my fair share of them). He’d done a four year Anglican community training course, in a midlife change of direction, but was not accepted for the actual training to be a minister. When I asked him why, he answered (in his unmistakeable gruff smoker’s voice): “Because I’ve got balls”. So that was Reg on women clergy. Ironically the vicar of his parish is a woman and after she’d conducted the funeral in his parish church I asked if he’d told her his views on the subject. She replied that he said “that he respected me as a woman”, leaving the rest unsaid. He used to stun CAFCA committee meetings, when it was an all male affair, with his unsolicited opinions on “sheilas, queers and horis” or some combination of all three. He was prone to regaling us with fond memories from his long ago youth, expressed in terms such as “when I was rooting sheilas in the sandhills”. Chairman Bill would then break the ensuing awkward silence by asking what was the next item on the agenda? Actually, if Reg had become a vicar (Rev Reg has a certain ring to it), I would have started going back to church just to hear his sermons. I guarantee they would have been priceless.
Cliches about rough diamonds and hearts of gold come to mind. Reg had plenty of faults, which he freely admitted, but despite all of that, he was one out of the box. He had a most unusual background for a CAFCA committee member. It was only after his death that his caregiver daughter Colleen told me that he’d been a member of the Young Nationals in his youth. He’d sworn her to secrecy, saying “Murray will kill me” (actually I wouldn’t have as CAFCA contains all sorts. One current National backbench MP used to be a member and an unsuccessful National candidate in the 2005 election has been a member for a quarter of a century). Reg had been in the Air Force (including serving with the military who occupied the wharves during the infamous 1951 lockout of the wharfies); he had worked in finance and insurance and, as I’ve mentioned, trained to be an Anglican minister, which made him the odd man out in a determinedly secular committee (which wasn’t always thus. Years ago, before Reg’s time, the committee included a Catholic priest and we used to hold meetings in his presbytery).
Air Force Man, Salesman, Spiderman
William Reginald Duder was born in Christchurch in 1929, one of three siblings (obviously he didn’t like his first name; if he’d been born American he would have been known as W Reginald Duder). His father was a fitter and turner who had to constantly move to where the jobs were – this peripatetic Depression childhood exacted a price on Reg’s education. He never went to high school. In 1944 he started a five year apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. He completed it, but never worked in that trade. Instead, in 1949, he signed up with the Air Force for eight years, starting as an aircraft engine mechanic and rising to be a General Service Instructor. He enjoyed the military life and while in it he married Melva Tremberth and they had six kids, while moving around the country’s Air Force bases. Reg was offered overseas postings, to the various countries with which NZ was at war or was occupying in the 1950s (Korea, Malaya, Japan) but turned them down on the grounds that he was a married man with a young and growing family. He never went overseas. But that military life soured for Reg the year before his term was up when he was charged with stealing some Air Force kerosene to fuel a heater for some of his fellow servicemen during a freezing winter. He was demoted in rank, so he left at the end of his eight years, rather than signing up for another term as he had planned to do. According to Colleen, he always regretted the cessation of his military career, although he was scornful of the modern Air Force, describing the officers as “pansies” when he observed them during a visit in recent years to Christchurch’s former Wigram Air Force Base. So, in 1957, Reg re-entered civilian life, as a car salesman. That lasted until the mid 60s when he went into selling life insurance, then, in the early 70s, he was headhunted for a finance company, as a sales representative travelling the South Island. It was in the 70s that Reg joined the former Social Credit, having moved on from the National Party of his youth. He was an active member and remained involved in that party and its’ differently named successors for the rest of his life.
Reg may not have been a political activist at this stage but he certainly had a keenly developed ability to thumb his nose at authority. In late 1974 he and a group of young blokes, including his sons, pulled off a series of daring escapades that fell squarely into the tradition of the Robin Hood urban guerrilla. The Police had launched the “Speak Up” campaign encouraging the public to report crime and had hung a huge 60 foot banner advertising that along the front of a former high profile hotel in Cathedral Square. It was duly liberated and turned up adorning the front of another central city hotel. The cops tied it to the top of the BNZ Building, then under construction in the Square and dared anyone to pinch it. The “Banner Boys” did just that, within a couple of weeks, using a crane to swing across to the building and cutting the big padlock securing the banner. Not content with that, the “Banner Boys” then also liberated the obscenely waggling finger of the huge Santa Claus that had stood on the former Haywrights department store’s central city awning every Christmas for decades and sent a letter to the firm saying that it would only be returned when a donation of $100 was made to an institution for handicapped kids, so that they could have a decent Christmas too (that sum seems ridiculously small these days, doesn’t it, but in 1974 I was paying $9 a week rent for half a house and was being paid $37 a week, to put it into perspective). The money was paid, the finger was returned, as was the Police banner. There was a flurry of Press and Christchurch Star articles (including an editorial) – Reg kept all the clippings, one of which was read out at his funeral by the vicar, to great merriment. Nobody was ever identified or charged with anything. Although he was by then in his mid 40s, Reg played a fully active part in this Spiderman adventure. Hard to imagine for those of us who only knew him in his old age.
Stroke Changed His Life Forever
By the late 70s Reg had become disillusioned with the financial world (so there’s nothing new about finance companies being regarded with distaste) and went back to life insurance. All was going along smoothly until one catastrophic health event changed his life, in many ways, for ever. In 1980 he had the brain haemorrhage and that changed everything. He took a long time to recover (many don’t survive a stroke, including my own late sister). He was devastated to be told by the doctors that he would never work again, that one knock to the area of his head covered by the scar could kill him. So he went from being a working man with a white collar job, supporting his family, and an athletic man enjoying an active life of fishing and camping (he used to regale us with tales of going to Lake Sumner when there were “fish as big as pianos”) to being a sickness beneficiary for the rest of his life. And that drastic change in his life circumstances was a contributing factor to the end of his marriage, in the 1980s, after 30 odd years. He came out of the bustup with just enough to buy his trusty Lada car and he moved in with his widowed daughter Colleen, who had been left a solo mother with a daughter (by a cruel coincidence Colleen’s late husband had died of a brain haemorrhage, in his early 20s). His ex-wife remarried, Reg never did.
The stroke sent him religious. He told me, many times, that during it, he’d had a vivid near death experience that had convinced him of the existence of God and Heaven and that he had nothing to fear when it was his time to die “because I know where I’m going, Murray” (in the interests of fairness, I should point out that we had just as many conversations about rugby, that other great religion of New Zealanders and a game which Reg had played as a young man. Unfortunately Reg couldn’t speak about the All Blacks with the same confidence as he did about the afterlife).
Christianity was a very central part of Reg’s life, which my committee colleagues realised to their surprise at the traditional religious funeral in his parish church. It was not a surprise to me, because of all of us I’d spent the most time with Reg and he had always been free and frank about his beliefs. I’m both a lapsed Anglican and Presbyterian, so we had many interesting discussions on religion, although he was neither a Biblebasher nor a proselytiser (but he would have been delighted that his death led to his committee colleagues having to go to church). Christianity gave him great certainty and comfort in his final years of dreadful sickness and pain. After he died, Colleen found his diary entry for his 79th birthday, written just days before he died – in it he described himself as being “blessed” and at peace. As already mentioned, in the 1980s, he completed a four year community course of preparatory training for the Anglican ministry. He applied to be accepted for the official training for the ministry but was declined by the then Bishop at an interview – according to Colleen he had “a flaming row” with the Bishop about it, for which Reg later apologised.
Commitment To Social Justice
Church practices had been a steep learning curve for Reg – a couple from his congregation who spoke at the funeral cracked everyone up with their story of him exploding at a retreat because nobody would speak to him, and then being mortified when told that was because it was a silent retreat. Reg was very much a social justice Christian. In 1991 the various churches’ social agencies, including the Anglicans, were, disgracefully, among the very first employers to take advantage of the anti-union Employment Contracts Act to bash their lowpaid workers. Reg stood in the Cathedral in the Square and for a whole day, throughout the several church services held there, silently held a placard that simply read “You’re Wrong”. In fact, he stopped going to church altogether for several years in the 90s because of his disgust at this. He was never afraid to interrupt the vicar’s sermons at his parish church if he thought that s/he had got something wrong. Right to the end he delighted in stirring up his fellow parishioners – his coffin was led into the church by his five year old great-grandson holding a placard entitled “Reg’s Last Protest”.
And it was the stroke that made Reg into a political activist. As a sickness beneficiary, he had his first contact with the social welfare system and he didn’t like what he saw. Considering it inherently unfair, he got involved in beneficiaries’ advocacy groups and thence into the protest movement. He was a high profile activist in early 90s’ social campaigns such as the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts (which protested against the savage cuts to all benefits made in National’s 1990 “Mother Of All Budgets”, cuts which have never been restored by Labour) and, most particularly, the State Housing Action Coalition, which protested National’s imposition of market rents on State house tenants (something which Labour did reverse). He understood very clearly the class war that was being waged against the poor in those years and he got stuck into the fightback. I had been warned by someone who worked with Reg in those campaigns that he was a sconedoer but I can honestly say that I never saw any evidence of that side of his personality in any of his dealings with me or anyone else on the committee. I saw flashes of it in his dealings with those whom he detested (see Jenny Shipley story below) but even that was muted.
And it was that passionate commitment to social justice that brought Reg to CAFCA. Paul Watson, the Southern Region Secretary of the National Distribution Union (NDU), spoke at the funeral and told how he had first met Reg in the late 1980s, when Paul was an official of the former Clothing Workers’ Union, and Reg became involved in various union campaigns to attempt to defend unions from the pulverising they were taking from Rogernomics. Reg remained a staunch union supporter for the rest of his life, with his views reinforced by the experiences of Colleen as an NDU delegate for years in a clothing factory. He joined the former New Labour Party, when it was created out of dissatisfaction with the Labour Party of the Roger Douglas era, hence into the Alliance. He simultaneously remained in the Democrats (which left the Alliance and resumed life as a stand alone party) and stayed with them until his death.
I didn’t know Reg at all as a middle aged man, let alone a young one. He was in his early 60s when I first met him. So, “old Reg” really was old Reg to his committee colleagues. For the details of the first 60 years of his life, I am indebted to Colleen. Reg is my only obituary subject in memory for whom I had nothing in writing, he had flown under the radar all of his life (apart from anonymous escapades such as the “Banner Boys”). I interviewed Colleen for this obituary and she freely confessed that she is hazy about whole chunks of her old man’s life because very little of it was recorded.
Very Active CAFCA Activist
Reg played a very active part in all CAFCA campaigns through the 90s. We were instrumental in setting up the Campaign for People’s Sovereignty, a coalition which fought the manifestations of foreign control at local government level for several years. We campaigned against the corporatisation of the former Southpower, Christchurch’s publicly owned power company. Reg was in the thick of that, taking part in regular pickets of both it and the City Council (the owner), plus always attending Southpower’s token annual public meeting and haranguing the management present (Southpower is long gone, a victim of National’s electricity “reforms”. So is TransAlta, the Canadian transnational which bought it, winning the Roger Award during its short but eventful sojourn in Christchurch). CAFCA got involved in the Canterbury Health Coalition to fight hospital charges (the wonderfully successful Can’t Pay Won’t Pay Don’t Pay Twice campaign) and moves to corporatise hospitals. Reg was active in that one. CAFCA initiated another coalition, the Society for Publicly Owned Telecommunications (SPOT) to campaign against American-owned Telecom. There were regular pickets, meetings, and petitions, etc – Reg was in his element in that. CAFCA campaigned against the sale of Trust Bank to Westpac and the City Council giving its rubbish collection contract to French transnational, Onyx – Reg was on the front line in all of that.
Some of my most vivid memories of Reg involve CAFCA’s participation in the successful Dump The Dump campaign of the late 90s, which stopped a regional landfill, with heavy transnational ownership, being built in the foothills near Darfield (it ended up in North Canterbury instead). Reg and I had some memorable trips out into the Tory heartland of rural Canterbury. To quote myself in Watchdog 93 (April 2000; “Waste Management: Darfield Dump Dumped”):
“In the wake of the 1999 announcement of the preferred site, Dump The Dump (the Selwyn group set up to fight it) settled in for the long haul. On the Sunday after the November general election they invited the public to join them at a picnic at the dumpsite, so that the urban rubbish producers could see the future destination of their weekly black plastic rubbish bags and weekend trailer loads to the various refuse treatment plants around Christchurch. Several hundred people accepted the invitation and headed for the hills (the Malvern Hills, that is). CAFCA was represented by myself and Reg Duder. Once again, we took several hundred copies of our leaflet on Waste Management, the same one that Reg and I had handed out at the 1999 midwinter Darfield public meeting to oppose the dump (over 1,000 people had attended that). It has been well circulated throughout the Selwyn district, being included in Dump The Dump’s material at the annual Canterbury Show and at the picnic itself. Driving towards Darfield, on the West Coast highway, motorists couldn’t escape the plethora of Dump The Dump signs on the roadsides, farm gates, and in farmers’ paddocks. These people were angry.
“The three speakers at the picnic reflected the broad political opposition to the landfill. They were, in order: Sir Kerry Burke, former (Labour) Speaker and current Christchurch 2021 Canterbury Regional Councillor (now Chair of ECan, as the Regional Council is now called); the local National MP, Jenny Shipley, who was still Prime Minister, despite National having been defeated the previous weekend; and (the late) Rod Donald, Greens Co-Leader, and technically an ex-MP at that point, as the Greens had fallen short on election day (but ended up with seven MPs, once special votes were counted). Shipley said that one of the few consolations in losing the election was the time that was now available to her to fight the landfill…
“It was a very strange sensation for CAFCA people to be listening politely to Jenny Shipley from a few metres away, surrounded by her applauding constituents. Single issues definitely lead to strange bedfellows. It was all a bit much for old Reg, who had been heavily involved in the fightback against Shipley’s vicious benefit cuts and war on the poor in the early 1990s. He shouted out something (about those benefit cuts, from memory) and was promptly shoved by the rural Tory next to him. But the rain doth fall on Tory and CAFCA alike – the speeches were abruptly foreshortened by the opening of the heavens, everyone scattered and decided that while they were at it, they might as well go home…”.
Reg was very much the CAFCA activist until his health confined him to home for his final years. His was a very practical activism. He got stuck into to help at as many Watchdog mailouts as he could; and for years he was the CAFCA driver – picking up Watchdog from the printers; getting it to NZ Post; transporting banners and placards to each and every picket or protest; driving me (a non-driver) wherever was beyond bike range (such as speaking engagements, both in Christchurch and out in the wop wops); taking responsibility for delivering, quite literally at a coughing, spluttering stagger in some cases, Colleen’s magnificent suppers to the Annual General Meetings which he attended as often as possible. I have fond memories of Reg my chauffeur in his increasingly battle scarred old Lada (in which he’d been hassled by the far Right nutters who plagued the drivers of “Communist” cars in the 80s. Reg had made a citizen’s arrest of one of them when he got sick of the harassment). He was the only person to back into our letterbox twice – it would have been three times but he hit me instead. On one morning mailout trip to the Christchurch Postal Centre the bloody car stalled at every set of lights on the one way street in rush hour traffic. I had visions of having to get out and carry several hundred Watchdogs through the streets (the car made it).
My all time favourite Reg story involves the potentially disastrous combination of his driving and smoking. We were coming home across the Canterbury Plains on a pitch black midwinter night, having distributed hundreds of CAFCA leaflets at a huge public meeting in Darfield to oppose the proposed dump (see above for details). He suddenly announced that he could smell something burning, so we pulled over and discovered his jersey smouldering away in the back seat. He was prone to coughing and hoicking out the driver’s window as he drove, plus chucking out his cigarette butt for good measure. The latter had gone straight in the back window and started a fire. Many and wonderful were the motoring stories which explained his arriving late at various meetings – everything seemed to happen to Reg and his car.
Reg’s Legacy To CAFCA Lives On
As I’ve said, his illhealth rendered Reg housebound for years, nearly all of the first decade of the 21st Century in fact. But that didn’t stop his political activism. Only a few years ago he joined the Anti-Bases Campaign and he valued his membership of that so much that he made a point of paying his sub the last time I saw him alive, just weeks before his death, even though he was obviously dying. CAFCA committee meetings are rotated around the homes of members, so every couple of months Reg would be our host, a task which he took very seriously because he was extremely proud of being on the committee (more than once he offered his resignation because he apologised that his health prevented him pulling his weight – we always declined and told him we valued his company and that he could have committee membership for life, which he did). There was nothing wrong with his mind, right up until the end, so he played a full part in those committee meetings held at his home - even when he could no longer wear pants because of the fluid buildup in his legs caused by terminal kidney failure (I’d seen the same symptom when my father was dying and knew that Reg’s death was imminent).
Reg was a man of forceful opinions, forcefully and frequently expressed. At meetings, he was prone to rhetorically bewail a perceived lack of public support for CAFCA’s good work. Whatever the issue under discussion, Reg would declaim “rampant bloody apathy” – which Colleen describes as his “favourite oxymoron” - as his explanation of where the masses were at (and I must say that I disagreed with him then and still do now). That became his signature phrase at committee meetings. He and I had another one which we shared and which was the last thing I ever said to him as I left his final meeting. I always used to jokingly tell him to “calm your shattered nerves, Reg”, to which he’d splutter and roar in reply “calm my shattered nerves is bloody right”. It arose because he always seemed to be in a fluster whenever I, or the committee, saw him. He lived life at full throttle, which does that to your composure. So, Reg, old mate, good friend, for one last time I’ll say to you “calm your shattered nerves”. You’ve earned a rest, sleep easy. We won’t forget you and, speaking personally, I’ll treasure your memory.
And Reg’s legacy to CAFCA lives on, quite literally, in the person of his daughter Colleen Hughes. As long as we knew him, he lived in her flat. Virtually every year we have a strategy meeting and the 2007 one (Reg’s final one) was held at their place. One item was suggestions for new committee members. Reg nominated Colleen and spoke strongly in her favour, because of her experience as a union activist. She’d been right under our noses for years and none of the rest of us had considered her in that capacity (blokes, you see). As a direct result of that, Colleen has become a valued addition to the committee, the first time we’ve ever had two generations of one family serving on it. But that was old Reg, he was always one for firsts.
REG DUDER
- Murray Horton
This is a sad first – namely having to write an obituary for a colleague on the CAFCA committee. Reg Duder, who died in January 2008 aged 79 (he just made it to a few days past his birthday), had been a CAFCA member since 1992 and had been on the committee for nearly all of that time. Reg had been getting sicker and sicker for several years and was housebound with frequent spells in hospital. We hadn’t seen him at a committee meeting outside his place for a good four or five years and the last time any of us saw him outside of his place for anything was when he attended Wolfgang Rosenberg’s February 2007 funeral. He was absolutely determined to attend that and pay his respects, despite being wheelchair bound and on oxygen. Sheer bloody pigheadedness kept him going for so long, indeed he hosted the final committee meeting for 2007, just days before Christmas, despite the fact that he had, by then, progressed to terminal kidney failure (and his legs were so swollen that he couldn’t wear pants, let alone any footwear. It made for a memorable meeting, and was the last time his committee colleagues saw him alive). It’s important to stress that Reg was more than a colleague, he was a good friend. I was very fond indeed of the old bugger.
It would be quicker to list what he didn’t have wrong with him rather than what he did have wrong with him. He had been a chain smoker nearly all his life – the photo of the dashing moustachioed young fellow in Air Force uniform on the cover of his funeral programme was almost unrecognisable except for the smoke in his hand. Until very recent years he used to preside over committee meetings at his place with his ubiquitous smoke (the rest of us being non-smokers). I used to get chastised by my ex-smoker wife when I tiptoed into the bedroom after those meetings because the smell of smoke on my hair and clothes used to wake her up. She always knew when I’d been to Reg’s. In the past decade CAFCA has joined an international network to fight tobacco transnationals and British American Tobacco NZ has been a regular Roger Award finalist, including in 2007 (when it was joint runner up; BAT has never been a winner yet). I think Reg reckoned that we were getting at him, although he did allow that he was the victim of an addiction whereby he had been hooked for the profit of the tobacco companies. To my astonishment, he did actually give up completely a couple of years ago, just went cold turkey. But the damage had been long done, and his lungs were absolutely buggered, necessitating him being permanently on oxygen. As long as I knew him, he had a smoker’s cough and accompanying hoick of truly Olympic proportions. But the old bugger would tell me with a straight face that smoking was not the cause of his multitude of health problems. One thing that should be made clear – Reg’s body may have been ruined in his final years but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He played a full part in what was going on around him, including the CAFCA committee, to the best of his abilities.
Once Met, Never Forgotten
Inevitably, somebody like Reg gets described as a “character”. In his case, that’s like saying the Pope’s a Catholic and does nothing to convey the unforgettable essence of the man. A “character” is a bit player in the drama of life. Reg was the full blown three act opera. Everything about him was distinctive, starting with his physical appearance – a lived in face that would have made a great Toby jug, with a boozer’s nose (which was strictly hereditary, as Reg didn’t drink) and a fearsome surgical scar that slashed across his bald skull (the result of the brain haemorrhage nearly 30 years ago that damn near killed him and sent him religious); his habit, winter or summer, of wearing only a flimsy short sleeved shirt, unbuttoned down his chest; usually in shorts, all the better to show off his knobbly knees. Reg was a classic old Kiwi joker of his generation. To use a very out of fashion phrase, he was a “man’s man” (with all that implies, good and bad). He’d give my late father a good run for the title of the most spectacularly politically incorrect old bugger that I’ve ever known (and I’ve known more than my fair share of them). He’d done a four year Anglican community training course, in a midlife change of direction, but was not accepted for the actual training to be a minister. When I asked him why, he answered (in his unmistakeable gruff smoker’s voice): “Because I’ve got balls”. So that was Reg on women clergy. Ironically the vicar of his parish is a woman and after she’d conducted the funeral in his parish church I asked if he’d told her his views on the subject. She replied that he said “that he respected me as a woman”, leaving the rest unsaid. He used to stun CAFCA committee meetings, when it was an all male affair, with his unsolicited opinions on “sheilas, queers and horis” or some combination of all three. He was prone to regaling us with fond memories from his long ago youth, expressed in terms such as “when I was rooting sheilas in the sandhills”. Chairman Bill would then break the ensuing awkward silence by asking what was the next item on the agenda? Actually, if Reg had become a vicar (Rev Reg has a certain ring to it), I would have started going back to church just to hear his sermons. I guarantee they would have been priceless.
Cliches about rough diamonds and hearts of gold come to mind. Reg had plenty of faults, which he freely admitted, but despite all of that, he was one out of the box. He had a most unusual background for a CAFCA committee member. It was only after his death that his caregiver daughter Colleen told me that he’d been a member of the Young Nationals in his youth. He’d sworn her to secrecy, saying “Murray will kill me” (actually I wouldn’t have as CAFCA contains all sorts. One current National backbench MP used to be a member and an unsuccessful National candidate in the 2005 election has been a member for a quarter of a century). Reg had been in the Air Force (including serving with the military who occupied the wharves during the infamous 1951 lockout of the wharfies); he had worked in finance and insurance and, as I’ve mentioned, trained to be an Anglican minister, which made him the odd man out in a determinedly secular committee (which wasn’t always thus. Years ago, before Reg’s time, the committee included a Catholic priest and we used to hold meetings in his presbytery).
Air Force Man, Salesman, Spiderman
William Reginald Duder was born in Christchurch in 1929, one of three siblings (obviously he didn’t like his first name; if he’d been born American he would have been known as W Reginald Duder). His father was a fitter and turner who had to constantly move to where the jobs were – this peripatetic Depression childhood exacted a price on Reg’s education. He never went to high school. In 1944 he started a five year apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. He completed it, but never worked in that trade. Instead, in 1949, he signed up with the Air Force for eight years, starting as an aircraft engine mechanic and rising to be a General Service Instructor. He enjoyed the military life and while in it he married Melva Tremberth and they had six kids, while moving around the country’s Air Force bases. Reg was offered overseas postings, to the various countries with which NZ was at war or was occupying in the 1950s (Korea, Malaya, Japan) but turned them down on the grounds that he was a married man with a young and growing family. He never went overseas. But that military life soured for Reg the year before his term was up when he was charged with stealing some Air Force kerosene to fuel a heater for some of his fellow servicemen during a freezing winter. He was demoted in rank, so he left at the end of his eight years, rather than signing up for another term as he had planned to do. According to Colleen, he always regretted the cessation of his military career, although he was scornful of the modern Air Force, describing the officers as “pansies” when he observed them during a visit in recent years to Christchurch’s former Wigram Air Force Base. So, in 1957, Reg re-entered civilian life, as a car salesman. That lasted until the mid 60s when he went into selling life insurance, then, in the early 70s, he was headhunted for a finance company, as a sales representative travelling the South Island. It was in the 70s that Reg joined the former Social Credit, having moved on from the National Party of his youth. He was an active member and remained involved in that party and its’ differently named successors for the rest of his life.
Reg may not have been a political activist at this stage but he certainly had a keenly developed ability to thumb his nose at authority. In late 1974 he and a group of young blokes, including his sons, pulled off a series of daring escapades that fell squarely into the tradition of the Robin Hood urban guerrilla. The Police had launched the “Speak Up” campaign encouraging the public to report crime and had hung a huge 60 foot banner advertising that along the front of a former high profile hotel in Cathedral Square. It was duly liberated and turned up adorning the front of another central city hotel. The cops tied it to the top of the BNZ Building, then under construction in the Square and dared anyone to pinch it. The “Banner Boys” did just that, within a couple of weeks, using a crane to swing across to the building and cutting the big padlock securing the banner. Not content with that, the “Banner Boys” then also liberated the obscenely waggling finger of the huge Santa Claus that had stood on the former Haywrights department store’s central city awning every Christmas for decades and sent a letter to the firm saying that it would only be returned when a donation of $100 was made to an institution for handicapped kids, so that they could have a decent Christmas too (that sum seems ridiculously small these days, doesn’t it, but in 1974 I was paying $9 a week rent for half a house and was being paid $37 a week, to put it into perspective). The money was paid, the finger was returned, as was the Police banner. There was a flurry of Press and Christchurch Star articles (including an editorial) – Reg kept all the clippings, one of which was read out at his funeral by the vicar, to great merriment. Nobody was ever identified or charged with anything. Although he was by then in his mid 40s, Reg played a fully active part in this Spiderman adventure. Hard to imagine for those of us who only knew him in his old age.
Stroke Changed His Life Forever
By the late 70s Reg had become disillusioned with the financial world (so there’s nothing new about finance companies being regarded with distaste) and went back to life insurance. All was going along smoothly until one catastrophic health event changed his life, in many ways, for ever. In 1980 he had the brain haemorrhage and that changed everything. He took a long time to recover (many don’t survive a stroke, including my own late sister). He was devastated to be told by the doctors that he would never work again, that one knock to the area of his head covered by the scar could kill him. So he went from being a working man with a white collar job, supporting his family, and an athletic man enjoying an active life of fishing and camping (he used to regale us with tales of going to Lake Sumner when there were “fish as big as pianos”) to being a sickness beneficiary for the rest of his life. And that drastic change in his life circumstances was a contributing factor to the end of his marriage, in the 1980s, after 30 odd years. He came out of the bustup with just enough to buy his trusty Lada car and he moved in with his widowed daughter Colleen, who had been left a solo mother with a daughter (by a cruel coincidence Colleen’s late husband had died of a brain haemorrhage, in his early 20s). His ex-wife remarried, Reg never did.
The stroke sent him religious. He told me, many times, that during it, he’d had a vivid near death experience that had convinced him of the existence of God and Heaven and that he had nothing to fear when it was his time to die “because I know where I’m going, Murray” (in the interests of fairness, I should point out that we had just as many conversations about rugby, that other great religion of New Zealanders and a game which Reg had played as a young man. Unfortunately Reg couldn’t speak about the All Blacks with the same confidence as he did about the afterlife).
Christianity was a very central part of Reg’s life, which my committee colleagues realised to their surprise at the traditional religious funeral in his parish church. It was not a surprise to me, because of all of us I’d spent the most time with Reg and he had always been free and frank about his beliefs. I’m both a lapsed Anglican and Presbyterian, so we had many interesting discussions on religion, although he was neither a Biblebasher nor a proselytiser (but he would have been delighted that his death led to his committee colleagues having to go to church). Christianity gave him great certainty and comfort in his final years of dreadful sickness and pain. After he died, Colleen found his diary entry for his 79th birthday, written just days before he died – in it he described himself as being “blessed” and at peace. As already mentioned, in the 1980s, he completed a four year community course of preparatory training for the Anglican ministry. He applied to be accepted for the official training for the ministry but was declined by the then Bishop at an interview – according to Colleen he had “a flaming row” with the Bishop about it, for which Reg later apologised.
Commitment To Social Justice
Church practices had been a steep learning curve for Reg – a couple from his congregation who spoke at the funeral cracked everyone up with their story of him exploding at a retreat because nobody would speak to him, and then being mortified when told that was because it was a silent retreat. Reg was very much a social justice Christian. In 1991 the various churches’ social agencies, including the Anglicans, were, disgracefully, among the very first employers to take advantage of the anti-union Employment Contracts Act to bash their lowpaid workers. Reg stood in the Cathedral in the Square and for a whole day, throughout the several church services held there, silently held a placard that simply read “You’re Wrong”. In fact, he stopped going to church altogether for several years in the 90s because of his disgust at this. He was never afraid to interrupt the vicar’s sermons at his parish church if he thought that s/he had got something wrong. Right to the end he delighted in stirring up his fellow parishioners – his coffin was led into the church by his five year old great-grandson holding a placard entitled “Reg’s Last Protest”.
And it was the stroke that made Reg into a political activist. As a sickness beneficiary, he had his first contact with the social welfare system and he didn’t like what he saw. Considering it inherently unfair, he got involved in beneficiaries’ advocacy groups and thence into the protest movement. He was a high profile activist in early 90s’ social campaigns such as the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts (which protested against the savage cuts to all benefits made in National’s 1990 “Mother Of All Budgets”, cuts which have never been restored by Labour) and, most particularly, the State Housing Action Coalition, which protested National’s imposition of market rents on State house tenants (something which Labour did reverse). He understood very clearly the class war that was being waged against the poor in those years and he got stuck into the fightback. I had been warned by someone who worked with Reg in those campaigns that he was a sconedoer but I can honestly say that I never saw any evidence of that side of his personality in any of his dealings with me or anyone else on the committee. I saw flashes of it in his dealings with those whom he detested (see Jenny Shipley story below) but even that was muted.
And it was that passionate commitment to social justice that brought Reg to CAFCA. Paul Watson, the Southern Region Secretary of the National Distribution Union (NDU), spoke at the funeral and told how he had first met Reg in the late 1980s, when Paul was an official of the former Clothing Workers’ Union, and Reg became involved in various union campaigns to attempt to defend unions from the pulverising they were taking from Rogernomics. Reg remained a staunch union supporter for the rest of his life, with his views reinforced by the experiences of Colleen as an NDU delegate for years in a clothing factory. He joined the former New Labour Party, when it was created out of dissatisfaction with the Labour Party of the Roger Douglas era, hence into the Alliance. He simultaneously remained in the Democrats (which left the Alliance and resumed life as a stand alone party) and stayed with them until his death.
I didn’t know Reg at all as a middle aged man, let alone a young one. He was in his early 60s when I first met him. So, “old Reg” really was old Reg to his committee colleagues. For the details of the first 60 years of his life, I am indebted to Colleen. Reg is my only obituary subject in memory for whom I had nothing in writing, he had flown under the radar all of his life (apart from anonymous escapades such as the “Banner Boys”). I interviewed Colleen for this obituary and she freely confessed that she is hazy about whole chunks of her old man’s life because very little of it was recorded.
Very Active CAFCA Activist
Reg played a very active part in all CAFCA campaigns through the 90s. We were instrumental in setting up the Campaign for People’s Sovereignty, a coalition which fought the manifestations of foreign control at local government level for several years. We campaigned against the corporatisation of the former Southpower, Christchurch’s publicly owned power company. Reg was in the thick of that, taking part in regular pickets of both it and the City Council (the owner), plus always attending Southpower’s token annual public meeting and haranguing the management present (Southpower is long gone, a victim of National’s electricity “reforms”. So is TransAlta, the Canadian transnational which bought it, winning the Roger Award during its short but eventful sojourn in Christchurch). CAFCA got involved in the Canterbury Health Coalition to fight hospital charges (the wonderfully successful Can’t Pay Won’t Pay Don’t Pay Twice campaign) and moves to corporatise hospitals. Reg was active in that one. CAFCA initiated another coalition, the Society for Publicly Owned Telecommunications (SPOT) to campaign against American-owned Telecom. There were regular pickets, meetings, and petitions, etc – Reg was in his element in that. CAFCA campaigned against the sale of Trust Bank to Westpac and the City Council giving its rubbish collection contract to French transnational, Onyx – Reg was on the front line in all of that.
Some of my most vivid memories of Reg involve CAFCA’s participation in the successful Dump The Dump campaign of the late 90s, which stopped a regional landfill, with heavy transnational ownership, being built in the foothills near Darfield (it ended up in North Canterbury instead). Reg and I had some memorable trips out into the Tory heartland of rural Canterbury. To quote myself in Watchdog 93 (April 2000; “Waste Management: Darfield Dump Dumped”):
“In the wake of the 1999 announcement of the preferred site, Dump The Dump (the Selwyn group set up to fight it) settled in for the long haul. On the Sunday after the November general election they invited the public to join them at a picnic at the dumpsite, so that the urban rubbish producers could see the future destination of their weekly black plastic rubbish bags and weekend trailer loads to the various refuse treatment plants around Christchurch. Several hundred people accepted the invitation and headed for the hills (the Malvern Hills, that is). CAFCA was represented by myself and Reg Duder. Once again, we took several hundred copies of our leaflet on Waste Management, the same one that Reg and I had handed out at the 1999 midwinter Darfield public meeting to oppose the dump (over 1,000 people had attended that). It has been well circulated throughout the Selwyn district, being included in Dump The Dump’s material at the annual Canterbury Show and at the picnic itself. Driving towards Darfield, on the West Coast highway, motorists couldn’t escape the plethora of Dump The Dump signs on the roadsides, farm gates, and in farmers’ paddocks. These people were angry.
“The three speakers at the picnic reflected the broad political opposition to the landfill. They were, in order: Sir Kerry Burke, former (Labour) Speaker and current Christchurch 2021 Canterbury Regional Councillor (now Chair of ECan, as the Regional Council is now called); the local National MP, Jenny Shipley, who was still Prime Minister, despite National having been defeated the previous weekend; and (the late) Rod Donald, Greens Co-Leader, and technically an ex-MP at that point, as the Greens had fallen short on election day (but ended up with seven MPs, once special votes were counted). Shipley said that one of the few consolations in losing the election was the time that was now available to her to fight the landfill…
“It was a very strange sensation for CAFCA people to be listening politely to Jenny Shipley from a few metres away, surrounded by her applauding constituents. Single issues definitely lead to strange bedfellows. It was all a bit much for old Reg, who had been heavily involved in the fightback against Shipley’s vicious benefit cuts and war on the poor in the early 1990s. He shouted out something (about those benefit cuts, from memory) and was promptly shoved by the rural Tory next to him. But the rain doth fall on Tory and CAFCA alike – the speeches were abruptly foreshortened by the opening of the heavens, everyone scattered and decided that while they were at it, they might as well go home…”.
Reg was very much the CAFCA activist until his health confined him to home for his final years. His was a very practical activism. He got stuck into to help at as many Watchdog mailouts as he could; and for years he was the CAFCA driver – picking up Watchdog from the printers; getting it to NZ Post; transporting banners and placards to each and every picket or protest; driving me (a non-driver) wherever was beyond bike range (such as speaking engagements, both in Christchurch and out in the wop wops); taking responsibility for delivering, quite literally at a coughing, spluttering stagger in some cases, Colleen’s magnificent suppers to the Annual General Meetings which he attended as often as possible. I have fond memories of Reg my chauffeur in his increasingly battle scarred old Lada (in which he’d been hassled by the far Right nutters who plagued the drivers of “Communist” cars in the 80s. Reg had made a citizen’s arrest of one of them when he got sick of the harassment). He was the only person to back into our letterbox twice – it would have been three times but he hit me instead. On one morning mailout trip to the Christchurch Postal Centre the bloody car stalled at every set of lights on the one way street in rush hour traffic. I had visions of having to get out and carry several hundred Watchdogs through the streets (the car made it).
My all time favourite Reg story involves the potentially disastrous combination of his driving and smoking. We were coming home across the Canterbury Plains on a pitch black midwinter night, having distributed hundreds of CAFCA leaflets at a huge public meeting in Darfield to oppose the proposed dump (see above for details). He suddenly announced that he could smell something burning, so we pulled over and discovered his jersey smouldering away in the back seat. He was prone to coughing and hoicking out the driver’s window as he drove, plus chucking out his cigarette butt for good measure. The latter had gone straight in the back window and started a fire. Many and wonderful were the motoring stories which explained his arriving late at various meetings – everything seemed to happen to Reg and his car.
Reg’s Legacy To CAFCA Lives On
As I’ve said, his illhealth rendered Reg housebound for years, nearly all of the first decade of the 21st Century in fact. But that didn’t stop his political activism. Only a few years ago he joined the Anti-Bases Campaign and he valued his membership of that so much that he made a point of paying his sub the last time I saw him alive, just weeks before his death, even though he was obviously dying. CAFCA committee meetings are rotated around the homes of members, so every couple of months Reg would be our host, a task which he took very seriously because he was extremely proud of being on the committee (more than once he offered his resignation because he apologised that his health prevented him pulling his weight – we always declined and told him we valued his company and that he could have committee membership for life, which he did). There was nothing wrong with his mind, right up until the end, so he played a full part in those committee meetings held at his home - even when he could no longer wear pants because of the fluid buildup in his legs caused by terminal kidney failure (I’d seen the same symptom when my father was dying and knew that Reg’s death was imminent).
Reg was a man of forceful opinions, forcefully and frequently expressed. At meetings, he was prone to rhetorically bewail a perceived lack of public support for CAFCA’s good work. Whatever the issue under discussion, Reg would declaim “rampant bloody apathy” – which Colleen describes as his “favourite oxymoron” - as his explanation of where the masses were at (and I must say that I disagreed with him then and still do now). That became his signature phrase at committee meetings. He and I had another one which we shared and which was the last thing I ever said to him as I left his final meeting. I always used to jokingly tell him to “calm your shattered nerves, Reg”, to which he’d splutter and roar in reply “calm my shattered nerves is bloody right”. It arose because he always seemed to be in a fluster whenever I, or the committee, saw him. He lived life at full throttle, which does that to your composure. So, Reg, old mate, good friend, for one last time I’ll say to you “calm your shattered nerves”. You’ve earned a rest, sleep easy. We won’t forget you and, speaking personally, I’ll treasure your memory.
And Reg’s legacy to CAFCA lives on, quite literally, in the person of his daughter Colleen Hughes. As long as we knew him, he lived in her flat. Virtually every year we have a strategy meeting and the 2007 one (Reg’s final one) was held at their place. One item was suggestions for new committee members. Reg nominated Colleen and spoke strongly in her favour, because of her experience as a union activist. She’d been right under our noses for years and none of the rest of us had considered her in that capacity (blokes, you see). As a direct result of that, Colleen has become a valued addition to the committee, the first time we’ve ever had two generations of one family serving on it. But that was old Reg, he was always one for firsts.
Another Review by Jeremy Agar
“GLOBALISATION AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS”
Brian Easton, Auckland University Press, 2007
Globalisation, Brian Easton suggests, is best seen as the falling cost of distance. This has in turn allowed for greater economies of scale. Starting at the dawn of the 19th Century (steam, rail) the world’s technologies have developed exponentially. The globalised world has become a more efficient producer and distributor of goods. This, an inevitable process, has all sorts of historical and cultural consequences.
Being the most distant (from Europe) and isolated of all, New Zealand has never lost its British migrants’ keen awareness of the economics of distance. Now that we’re no longer so far away (most obviously these days because of computer technology) we’ve been hugely advantaged by globalisation. Like Chris Trotter and Michael King, Easton locates the origins of modern NZ in the invention of refrigeration and the opening of an overseas market in mutton following the first shipment in 1882. So globalisation is the product of technological improvements. These have made our lives easier, richer and more fulfilling. Surely we can agree. Well, yes, we can. But, Easton continues, as though to acknowledge the carping of the critics of globalisation, we might well have become a bit more alike, but that’s a small price to pay.
Here, at the start, Easton invites disagreement. Of course communication has been a benevolent trend. If it rescues us from isolation and ignorance, so that we can share experience and overcome insular narrowness, then how can there be any problem with globalisation. What’s the beef? Do groups like CAFCA want us to let our farms revert to gorse, to turn off our computers, to close our airports (after expelling the foreigners)? This, the standard line of the globalisers, reverses the real attitude of critics, who have inherited an internationalist outlook. Surely a moderate like Easton is not about to endorse the nonsense.
As a guide to the world economy, this book is fair enough. It’s way better than the pulp pumped out by the unblinking devotees of neo-liberal fashion. Yet it’s an often annoying account. The first, less significant difficulty is that, in order to put things into neat context, Easton breezes past all sorts of messy detail. For instance, addressing the question of whether globalisation means a loss of national identity, he looks at Canada. If anyone is going to be absorbed by the global (that’s American) culture, it’s Canada. It’s next door to the US, sharing a lot of history and culture.
Easton’s Sketch Of Canada Would Surprise Canadians
He observes that “most Canadians are bilingual” when in fact there are whole provinces where French is spoken as often as it is in Akaroa. Neither would they recognise their origins as including, as an afterthought, just “some Europeans” whose ancestors were neither British nor French, nor from the First Nations. Easton discerns a “vigorous” Quebec separatist movement, whereas separatism has been dormant for decades. In the context of his analysis, this apparently superficial and dated account matters in that Easton says that the separatist impulse has to do with “cultural identity”. Another influence can be assumed in the context of “colonial legacy”. It’s all so NZ, so much cultural baggage.
In its glory days, perhaps, separatism was about culture, especially language. But by the 80s, Quebec nationalism was to a large extent the ideology of a rising business class anxious to sever ties with English Canada - the real, unannounced enemy being social-contract Keynesian Canada - so that it could tag itself to the US “free market”. When Easton notes, correctly, that Canadians often define themselves as having a better, because public, health system than the Americans, this is not mere cultural preference. Besides being a resistance to American ideology, the advocacy for public health is a response to the North American Free Trade Agreement, to globalisation. Similarly, you could argue that, rather than being a response to globalisation, Quebec separatism has been an expression of it.
The part of Canada which most resembles the US is Alberta, but it does so now no more than it has for the last half century. In Alberta the French language is virtually extinct and much resented. It’s the only province where a candidate like George Bush would have a chance of not running last in an election. This suggests that Tory support, both federally and in Calgary, for Quebec nationalists was not motivated by culture. Alberta is staunch for the southern neighbour because its economy has been based on beef and, vitally, oil.
Easton’s scope is wide, but, as with his peremptory chat about Canada, he begs as many questions as he answers. If globalisation is a term to describe economic relationships, then North America and Europe are Rich Club partners (Easton’s phrase), and the relationship that matters is the one that exists between them and the Poor Club. And if we want to think about social trends (which are the stuff of most political policy) we could ask, also, whether relationships between people within the Rich Club have been affected by globalisation. Of course Canadians seem untroubled by the American fact. They host American sports leagues; they cross the border to shop. Americans and Canadians own holiday homes in each other’s countries. To what meaningful extent could globalisation affect the surfaces of middle-class people’s daily lives?
Cultural convergence has a hidden meaning, a code that, wherever we live, we can all decipher. Becoming alike means becoming American - more exactly, mass consumerist American. Yet individual Americans, depending on age, class and geography, are as likely to reject this image of themselves as the rest of us. Thinking primarily in terms of nations and their cultures doesn’t help an understanding of how the global economy works. The world’s bad neighbours live in economically messed up places, but they will almost always say that they had been living in peace. It would be condescending and inaccurate to offer cultural explanations for the difference between the present condition of North America and, say, the Balkans. According to the mass media the crumbling of Yugoslavia was the result of old ethnic scores being settled. A more careful explanation would note that globalisation itself has been a catalyst for the recent turmoil in Serbia.
And throughout the really poor world. Easton is wise not to offer thumbnail sketches of any of the many lesser known countries enmeshed by global neo-liberalism. Which ones to pick to be representative? Which facts to highlight and which to ignore? Selection can allow, albeit accidentally, for as big a bias as intentional misinformation and Easton is not intending to beat a drum for the marketeers. However, the result is that he can’t show us globalisation at work in the bulk of the globe, where the effects are both more directly and more severely the consequence of the policies he’s endorsing. Despite the shrinking of distance, the sweatshops of Thailand and China and the farms of Mexico and Sri Lanka are still far from Canada.
Easton almost notes that the rejection of a harmonised European Union in a couple of national referenda was a rejection of the more-market ideology. He prefers an oblique suggestion. There “seems”, he writes, “to be a fear that the social market economy itself is under threat”. Put this way, the opposition is rendered quaint, a Luddite anachronism. Yet Easton abandons hesitancy as he continues his discussion of the contemporary Rich Club. He maintains that the increasing importance of women in the workplace is not an outcome of globalisation. No, not in itself, not in the Rich Club, not if we have in mind executives or managers or chief justices, but the types of jobs in the “free trade” economies certainly are. Had he considered women’s jobs in the Poor Club, Easton could not have reached any conclusion that did not begin by looking at World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Insufficient contributions to public health systems in the Rich Club, he goes on, have “nothing to do” with globalisation (in the Poor Club they won’t either, because the effect of WTO rules is that in many cases public health systems won’t begin). Also - the list is long - it is “inevitable” that present pension levels will be cut.
Where’s The Proof?
Just a moment. You have to prove these things. It’s not enough to assert that it’s not possible for a society to provide well paid jobs, good hospitals, and secure pensions, not without addressing the many cogent arguments for seeing the cuts as the direct consequence of globalisation - as its purpose even. Increased job insecurity and the eliminating of jobs “could have occurred, in principle”, without globalisation, Easton points out. In principle, the critics might concur, if they’re right that globalisation is nothing but domestic neo-liberalism exported, joblessness and insecurity are the goal (a suggestion for readers: after you’ve gone through this book, get Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and make up your own minds).
Then Easton again undermines his own narrative. “Given the mobility of capital”, he begins a new section, “there is not enough money around for governments to fund infrastructure and promote trade”. Here are three more major and barely examined assumptions. Easton takes it for granted, first, that it is the role of taxes paid by citizens to subsidise the costs of private business; second, that governments can’t act to stop tax avoidance by transnational corporations (TNCs); and third, that mobility being ever faster, the money will keep on withering away. On the contrary, anti-globalisers might say, the rules of globalisation were invented so that finance could be irresponsible.
When it comes to the traditional role of governments (at least since the early 20th Century Seddon era, in our case) to provide health, education and other social goods, Easton says that Rich Club countries could tax corporations a bit, if they insisted - and if their profits grew as a result of deregulation - but we have to realise that the “traditional Left dream of plundering corporations to fund the Welfare State is fading”. Plundering? In an avowedly dispassionate textbook?
Anti-globalisers have looked at the Doha Round of WTO talks and seen its failure as a victory for the little guys, who were resisting the drive of transnationals to entirely replace public governments. Easton sees it differently. In his view, the Rich Club saw restraints on corporate power as holding back the poor. He presents the negotiations as the defeat of a benign nice guy US side by petty self-interest. The US, he breezily maintains, wanted development for the poor world. The WTO is characterised as wanting the rule-of-law to replace the “law of the jungle”.
It’s better seen the other way round, as the rule-of-nation-states being replaced by law-of-the-jungle corporates. Yes, they work by rules, but the laws are made so that they’ll get what they want. That makes WTO law the law-of-the-jungle. The big “predators” would limit their powers, Easton says, in return for “increased certainty” for their transnationals. Who are the predators? Easton says that according to the new thinking they are our elected public representatives. They should hand over their responsibilities to Big Business so it can be “certain” that it can do what it wants. In this - the bottom line, we might say - he’s right about what’s going on. But that’s the problem. Globalisation’s critics don’t see democracy as predatory. They don’t see why ordinary people should live in doubt and insecurity so that Big Business can live in confidence and security. They can’t see that the result of transferring authority from governments to corporations will result in a shift in influence “towards the poor and the weak”. All the evidence suggests the opposite: that WTO policies make the poor poorer; and that they do so in order to make transnationals richer. As Easton himself is emphasising, the big neo-liberal states like Bush’s America are all about downsizing public government. On this, both sides of the debate are agreed. The remaining question is whether this is a good idea. The American electorate seems to be grumpy.
Neo-Liberal Theory Does Not Match Reality
Easton must know that the real world does not work the way neo-liberal theory hopes it does. Profits, he writes, following the letter of the WTO documents as if they reflected their intent, might flow from Poor Club factories to Rich Club boardrooms, but that’s only because of local savings deficits, not the “‘wickedness’” - another loaded “joke” - of TNCs. Had the locals put aside a few billion, they could have bought shares in the transnationals to offset the outward flow. True enough. And there’s no law that compels the poor of Paris to sleep under bridges and the rich to live in mansions.
This misleadingly bloodless approach enables Easton to claim that “transnationals are but global extensions of local companies”, but they’re not different merely in degree; they’re different in kind. Karl Marx, an economist admired by Easton, explained change as a fluid process. At a certain stage, a critical mass is reached, a tipping point, and things become something other than what they had been. The self-styled revolutionary neo-liberals share this outlook. They hope that the WTO rules are the lever to tip power to the transnationals.
Easton feels able to say that the people he dubs the anti-globalisers want to return to “a vague Arcadia which has never existed”. In doing so, he bashes a very straggly straw man. If there’s anything that marks the anti-imperialist and internationalist movement (a more accurate designation of anti-globalisers) it’s a hostility to exploitation and a championing of social progress. It’s the deniers of past and present injustice, neo-liberal free traders and their predecessors, who live in an imagined Arcadia of freedom loving maidens punching out from the shoe factory and lining up at the local McDonalds. Easton reverses history to imply that the opponents of WTO are against trade. It’s a gibe favoured by neo-liberals, but Easton does himself no favours by borrowing it. It’s a farcical misrepresentation, but if believed it would be especially potent in a country like NZ which depends more than most on the outside world.
It’s a pity that Easton, who introduced his book as being middle of the road and objective, borrows some of the cheap shots of the globalisers and endorses all the key aspects of their programme. In his Listener columns and talks on current events, Easton has been informative and balanced. It’s his big picture that’s ugly. As though belatedly striving for this moderation, he concludes by observing that the definitive member of the Rich Club, the US, does not enjoy “a good record of delivering” services that benefit its people. These include the “administrative services of government, police and justice, and - more arguably - education, health, social welfare and cultural services” (arguable for the extreme libertarian Right, maybe, but not for - to borrow a phrase - the mainstream). Thus “it is possible that [the] market-state, unconcerned for the welfare of its people, may descend into fractious class warfare”. Fractious trouble ahead? Class as relevant, and not just “culture”? Where did that come from?
Brian Easton, Auckland University Press, 2007
Globalisation, Brian Easton suggests, is best seen as the falling cost of distance. This has in turn allowed for greater economies of scale. Starting at the dawn of the 19th Century (steam, rail) the world’s technologies have developed exponentially. The globalised world has become a more efficient producer and distributor of goods. This, an inevitable process, has all sorts of historical and cultural consequences.
Being the most distant (from Europe) and isolated of all, New Zealand has never lost its British migrants’ keen awareness of the economics of distance. Now that we’re no longer so far away (most obviously these days because of computer technology) we’ve been hugely advantaged by globalisation. Like Chris Trotter and Michael King, Easton locates the origins of modern NZ in the invention of refrigeration and the opening of an overseas market in mutton following the first shipment in 1882. So globalisation is the product of technological improvements. These have made our lives easier, richer and more fulfilling. Surely we can agree. Well, yes, we can. But, Easton continues, as though to acknowledge the carping of the critics of globalisation, we might well have become a bit more alike, but that’s a small price to pay.
Here, at the start, Easton invites disagreement. Of course communication has been a benevolent trend. If it rescues us from isolation and ignorance, so that we can share experience and overcome insular narrowness, then how can there be any problem with globalisation. What’s the beef? Do groups like CAFCA want us to let our farms revert to gorse, to turn off our computers, to close our airports (after expelling the foreigners)? This, the standard line of the globalisers, reverses the real attitude of critics, who have inherited an internationalist outlook. Surely a moderate like Easton is not about to endorse the nonsense.
As a guide to the world economy, this book is fair enough. It’s way better than the pulp pumped out by the unblinking devotees of neo-liberal fashion. Yet it’s an often annoying account. The first, less significant difficulty is that, in order to put things into neat context, Easton breezes past all sorts of messy detail. For instance, addressing the question of whether globalisation means a loss of national identity, he looks at Canada. If anyone is going to be absorbed by the global (that’s American) culture, it’s Canada. It’s next door to the US, sharing a lot of history and culture.
Easton’s Sketch Of Canada Would Surprise Canadians
He observes that “most Canadians are bilingual” when in fact there are whole provinces where French is spoken as often as it is in Akaroa. Neither would they recognise their origins as including, as an afterthought, just “some Europeans” whose ancestors were neither British nor French, nor from the First Nations. Easton discerns a “vigorous” Quebec separatist movement, whereas separatism has been dormant for decades. In the context of his analysis, this apparently superficial and dated account matters in that Easton says that the separatist impulse has to do with “cultural identity”. Another influence can be assumed in the context of “colonial legacy”. It’s all so NZ, so much cultural baggage.
In its glory days, perhaps, separatism was about culture, especially language. But by the 80s, Quebec nationalism was to a large extent the ideology of a rising business class anxious to sever ties with English Canada - the real, unannounced enemy being social-contract Keynesian Canada - so that it could tag itself to the US “free market”. When Easton notes, correctly, that Canadians often define themselves as having a better, because public, health system than the Americans, this is not mere cultural preference. Besides being a resistance to American ideology, the advocacy for public health is a response to the North American Free Trade Agreement, to globalisation. Similarly, you could argue that, rather than being a response to globalisation, Quebec separatism has been an expression of it.
The part of Canada which most resembles the US is Alberta, but it does so now no more than it has for the last half century. In Alberta the French language is virtually extinct and much resented. It’s the only province where a candidate like George Bush would have a chance of not running last in an election. This suggests that Tory support, both federally and in Calgary, for Quebec nationalists was not motivated by culture. Alberta is staunch for the southern neighbour because its economy has been based on beef and, vitally, oil.
Easton’s scope is wide, but, as with his peremptory chat about Canada, he begs as many questions as he answers. If globalisation is a term to describe economic relationships, then North America and Europe are Rich Club partners (Easton’s phrase), and the relationship that matters is the one that exists between them and the Poor Club. And if we want to think about social trends (which are the stuff of most political policy) we could ask, also, whether relationships between people within the Rich Club have been affected by globalisation. Of course Canadians seem untroubled by the American fact. They host American sports leagues; they cross the border to shop. Americans and Canadians own holiday homes in each other’s countries. To what meaningful extent could globalisation affect the surfaces of middle-class people’s daily lives?
Cultural convergence has a hidden meaning, a code that, wherever we live, we can all decipher. Becoming alike means becoming American - more exactly, mass consumerist American. Yet individual Americans, depending on age, class and geography, are as likely to reject this image of themselves as the rest of us. Thinking primarily in terms of nations and their cultures doesn’t help an understanding of how the global economy works. The world’s bad neighbours live in economically messed up places, but they will almost always say that they had been living in peace. It would be condescending and inaccurate to offer cultural explanations for the difference between the present condition of North America and, say, the Balkans. According to the mass media the crumbling of Yugoslavia was the result of old ethnic scores being settled. A more careful explanation would note that globalisation itself has been a catalyst for the recent turmoil in Serbia.
And throughout the really poor world. Easton is wise not to offer thumbnail sketches of any of the many lesser known countries enmeshed by global neo-liberalism. Which ones to pick to be representative? Which facts to highlight and which to ignore? Selection can allow, albeit accidentally, for as big a bias as intentional misinformation and Easton is not intending to beat a drum for the marketeers. However, the result is that he can’t show us globalisation at work in the bulk of the globe, where the effects are both more directly and more severely the consequence of the policies he’s endorsing. Despite the shrinking of distance, the sweatshops of Thailand and China and the farms of Mexico and Sri Lanka are still far from Canada.
Easton almost notes that the rejection of a harmonised European Union in a couple of national referenda was a rejection of the more-market ideology. He prefers an oblique suggestion. There “seems”, he writes, “to be a fear that the social market economy itself is under threat”. Put this way, the opposition is rendered quaint, a Luddite anachronism. Yet Easton abandons hesitancy as he continues his discussion of the contemporary Rich Club. He maintains that the increasing importance of women in the workplace is not an outcome of globalisation. No, not in itself, not in the Rich Club, not if we have in mind executives or managers or chief justices, but the types of jobs in the “free trade” economies certainly are. Had he considered women’s jobs in the Poor Club, Easton could not have reached any conclusion that did not begin by looking at World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Insufficient contributions to public health systems in the Rich Club, he goes on, have “nothing to do” with globalisation (in the Poor Club they won’t either, because the effect of WTO rules is that in many cases public health systems won’t begin). Also - the list is long - it is “inevitable” that present pension levels will be cut.
Where’s The Proof?
Just a moment. You have to prove these things. It’s not enough to assert that it’s not possible for a society to provide well paid jobs, good hospitals, and secure pensions, not without addressing the many cogent arguments for seeing the cuts as the direct consequence of globalisation - as its purpose even. Increased job insecurity and the eliminating of jobs “could have occurred, in principle”, without globalisation, Easton points out. In principle, the critics might concur, if they’re right that globalisation is nothing but domestic neo-liberalism exported, joblessness and insecurity are the goal (a suggestion for readers: after you’ve gone through this book, get Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and make up your own minds).
Then Easton again undermines his own narrative. “Given the mobility of capital”, he begins a new section, “there is not enough money around for governments to fund infrastructure and promote trade”. Here are three more major and barely examined assumptions. Easton takes it for granted, first, that it is the role of taxes paid by citizens to subsidise the costs of private business; second, that governments can’t act to stop tax avoidance by transnational corporations (TNCs); and third, that mobility being ever faster, the money will keep on withering away. On the contrary, anti-globalisers might say, the rules of globalisation were invented so that finance could be irresponsible.
When it comes to the traditional role of governments (at least since the early 20th Century Seddon era, in our case) to provide health, education and other social goods, Easton says that Rich Club countries could tax corporations a bit, if they insisted - and if their profits grew as a result of deregulation - but we have to realise that the “traditional Left dream of plundering corporations to fund the Welfare State is fading”. Plundering? In an avowedly dispassionate textbook?
Anti-globalisers have looked at the Doha Round of WTO talks and seen its failure as a victory for the little guys, who were resisting the drive of transnationals to entirely replace public governments. Easton sees it differently. In his view, the Rich Club saw restraints on corporate power as holding back the poor. He presents the negotiations as the defeat of a benign nice guy US side by petty self-interest. The US, he breezily maintains, wanted development for the poor world. The WTO is characterised as wanting the rule-of-law to replace the “law of the jungle”.
It’s better seen the other way round, as the rule-of-nation-states being replaced by law-of-the-jungle corporates. Yes, they work by rules, but the laws are made so that they’ll get what they want. That makes WTO law the law-of-the-jungle. The big “predators” would limit their powers, Easton says, in return for “increased certainty” for their transnationals. Who are the predators? Easton says that according to the new thinking they are our elected public representatives. They should hand over their responsibilities to Big Business so it can be “certain” that it can do what it wants. In this - the bottom line, we might say - he’s right about what’s going on. But that’s the problem. Globalisation’s critics don’t see democracy as predatory. They don’t see why ordinary people should live in doubt and insecurity so that Big Business can live in confidence and security. They can’t see that the result of transferring authority from governments to corporations will result in a shift in influence “towards the poor and the weak”. All the evidence suggests the opposite: that WTO policies make the poor poorer; and that they do so in order to make transnationals richer. As Easton himself is emphasising, the big neo-liberal states like Bush’s America are all about downsizing public government. On this, both sides of the debate are agreed. The remaining question is whether this is a good idea. The American electorate seems to be grumpy.
Neo-Liberal Theory Does Not Match Reality
Easton must know that the real world does not work the way neo-liberal theory hopes it does. Profits, he writes, following the letter of the WTO documents as if they reflected their intent, might flow from Poor Club factories to Rich Club boardrooms, but that’s only because of local savings deficits, not the “‘wickedness’” - another loaded “joke” - of TNCs. Had the locals put aside a few billion, they could have bought shares in the transnationals to offset the outward flow. True enough. And there’s no law that compels the poor of Paris to sleep under bridges and the rich to live in mansions.
This misleadingly bloodless approach enables Easton to claim that “transnationals are but global extensions of local companies”, but they’re not different merely in degree; they’re different in kind. Karl Marx, an economist admired by Easton, explained change as a fluid process. At a certain stage, a critical mass is reached, a tipping point, and things become something other than what they had been. The self-styled revolutionary neo-liberals share this outlook. They hope that the WTO rules are the lever to tip power to the transnationals.
Easton feels able to say that the people he dubs the anti-globalisers want to return to “a vague Arcadia which has never existed”. In doing so, he bashes a very straggly straw man. If there’s anything that marks the anti-imperialist and internationalist movement (a more accurate designation of anti-globalisers) it’s a hostility to exploitation and a championing of social progress. It’s the deniers of past and present injustice, neo-liberal free traders and their predecessors, who live in an imagined Arcadia of freedom loving maidens punching out from the shoe factory and lining up at the local McDonalds. Easton reverses history to imply that the opponents of WTO are against trade. It’s a gibe favoured by neo-liberals, but Easton does himself no favours by borrowing it. It’s a farcical misrepresentation, but if believed it would be especially potent in a country like NZ which depends more than most on the outside world.
It’s a pity that Easton, who introduced his book as being middle of the road and objective, borrows some of the cheap shots of the globalisers and endorses all the key aspects of their programme. In his Listener columns and talks on current events, Easton has been informative and balanced. It’s his big picture that’s ugly. As though belatedly striving for this moderation, he concludes by observing that the definitive member of the Rich Club, the US, does not enjoy “a good record of delivering” services that benefit its people. These include the “administrative services of government, police and justice, and - more arguably - education, health, social welfare and cultural services” (arguable for the extreme libertarian Right, maybe, but not for - to borrow a phrase - the mainstream). Thus “it is possible that [the] market-state, unconcerned for the welfare of its people, may descend into fractious class warfare”. Fractious trouble ahead? Class as relevant, and not just “culture”? Where did that come from?
Reviews by Jeremy Agar
Jeremy Agar is the regular review writer for both Watchdog and Peace Researcher (the publication of the Anti-Bases Campaign) and is also a committee member of CAFCA.
“THE SHOCK DOCTRINE”,
Naomi Klein, Penguin, Victoria, 2007
Some years into the Nikkei’s* prolonged doldrums a serious looking man on TV said he was hoping for a major earthquake to hit Japan. As it’s on a fault line Tokyo is sure to get one sooner or later, the suit assured the camera, and sooner would be better. If Tokyo fell over, it would have to be rebuilt. This would provide a powerful stimulus to domestic investment, the lack of which had been holding back Japan’s stock market. *Nikkei is a stock index of the Tokyo Stock Market. Ed.
It sounds like satire, but there was no sense of irony in the remark. That’s because it was a conventional piece of economic analysis, offered in the context of a discussion about global markets. Of all the cliched phrases favoured by financial commentators, the notion of “creative destruction” might be the most popular of all. What better way to boost the Japanese economy, which was becoming deflationary, than by putting the country’s vast savings into something more potent than a tiny bit of bank interest? Capitalist economies need growth and expansion.
Among the money men violent slogans abound, so much so that we tend not to notice them. Naomi Klein thinks we need to. Her starting point is “shock therapy”, the 1990s’ version of the ideology. Had her book detailed the uses of “shock therapy” it would have been valuable, but it would not have been indispensable. Others have told the sorry tale and told it well. Klein makes no claim to having covered new ground or to being an economist. Amid her copious acknowledgements, she admits to having asked for a crash course on the theories of neo-liberalism. She’s too modest. “The Shock Doctrine” offers an original and stimulating synthesis*.
*Klein notes the contributions of writers we’ve discussed in previous issues e.g. John Perkins: “Confessions Of An Economic Hitman”, Antonia Juhasz: “The Bush Agenda” and Stephen Kinzer: “Overthrow”, all reviewed in Watchdog 112, August 2006, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/12/08.htm; also Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalization And Its Discontents”, in Watchdog 105, April 2004, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/05/10.htm. I’ve previously reviewed other insightful accounts, including those by Noam Chomsky: “Hegemony Or Survival”, Watchdog 106, August 2004, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/06/16.htm; John Ralston Saul, “The Collapse Of Globalism”, Watchdog 110, December 2005, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/10/05.htm; Bryan Gould: “The Democracy Sham”, Watchdog 114, May 2007, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/14/03.htm; Sharon Beder: “Suiting Themselves”, Watchdog 115, August 2007, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/15/09.htm.
Neo-Liberalism: Selfishness & Self-Deception
Neo-liberalism touts itself as a new science, yet it is based on a series of very old assumptions. It pretends to rationality, claiming to be giving us a true account of human nature, alternatives being merely false. But the basic premise on which all is based - that our species is selfish, always seeking to maximise personal gain - is as overt a prejudice as any. Self-deception is at the core of neo-liberal theory and its truths are really hopes. It needs human nature to be this way because that would validate the championing of the rich and powerful. Klein is showing us that, rather than the cool technocrats of their own publicity, neo-libs tend to be frenetic propagandists. They have invented an implausible economic actor for whom every social occasion is a market transaction.
Klein gives an extensive account of Milton Friedman, guru of what has come to be known as the Chicago School. Friedman has a cult following for lecturing his disciples that “only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically possible”. This is the origin of shock therapy as an explicitly political phrase. The patient, the moderate welfarist economies of the post-war West, could have been treated in outpatients and sent home, but then he would have continued to live his irrational, unselfish life. So Dr Friedman summoned the orderlies to wheel him into the operating theatre.
“Capitalism And Freedom”, Friedman’s seminal work, came out in 1962, mostly - and fortunately - ignored. The “politically possible” moment arrived in the early 1970s when Chile elected Salvador Allende as President. Being reformist, the new Government might have challenged the US transnationals, and Chile’s tradition of democracy was a threat to the reliable dictatorships in the rest of Latin America. The result is well-known. In the name of “individual freedom” Allende was murdered (in the “first 9/11” i.e. on September 11th, 1973) and fascism was installed in the form of General Pinochet, a fervent admirer of Friedman.
The election of true believers Margaret Thatcher in the UK, in 1979, and, in the next year, of Ronald Reagan in the US, gave legitimacy and influence to neo-liberals. As self-styled revolutionaries, Maoists of the Right, the Friedmanites admitted no deviations from the one true path. That way lay temptation. In Klein’s words: “In order for the ideal to be achieved, it requires a monopoly on ideology; otherwise, according to the central theory, the economic signals become distorted and the entire system is thrown out of balance”. So it works best in a dictatorship like Chile, but, if a parliamentary democracy can be convinced to join the movement, the propaganda value is greater. Enter NZ, which succumbed in 1984. In the heady early days of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, we contended with Chile as the purest expression of the new order (NZ does not feature in the book, probably because our - as we say - clean, green land has a happy reputation).
Three Essential Elements
Klein points to three essential elements to the neo-liberal revolution: privatisation, government deregulation and big social spending cuts. These enable “huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt”. Between Pinochet’s killings and David Lange’s deceptions lies much of the world. Klein tours the trouble spots, showing how crises were created so that the new order could be built amid the rubble of the old. Because none of the world’s societies would choose neo-liberalism, secrecy is always needed *. In Bolivia, which was administered shock therapy in 1985, apparently only five Bolivians knew about the surgery in advance. The five included the head of the army and the head of the police. *The importance of secrecy in a democratic context like NZ is described in my review of “Roderick Deane” by Michael and Judith Bassett in Watchdog 113, December 2006, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/13/11.htm.
Bolivia’s prescription was written by the American economist, Jeffrey Sachs, who also operated on Russia and Poland **. And in 2006 it was revealed that the 1400-page report that had ravaged Argentina after its 1992 therapy had been written in secret by the Wall Street financiers, JP Morgan and Citibank. **These operations Sachs now disowns, claiming they didn’t follow his medication. As Klein found when interviewing him, Sachs has realised primitive market mechanisms don’t always work but he finds it hard to admit he was wrong. These days his public statements about Africa are certainly more responsible.
Klein is cogent in putting into context the various experiments. Whatever political circumstances obtain, the therapists have to be adroit opportunists. The best time to strike is when citizens have other things to think about. Some examples: Yugoslavia, after the 1999 NATO attack; China, in 1989 after Tiananmen Square, and Russia, in 1993 after Boris Yeltsin’s tanks fired on Parliament. Thatcher, who had to contend with a notoriously pragmatic and gradualist electorate, could operate only after the Argentine colonels invaded the Falklands in 1982. She seized the moment to pick a fight with the trade union movement by deploying the State against the coal miners. Then she could begin her privatisation.
Restructuring (this more wideranging term does not figure in Kein’s lexicon) needs a cleared building site. Observing the chaos of Yeltsin’s regime, Richard Pipes, a relieved American neo-lib strategist, said he had been hoping “for Russia to keep disintegrating until nothing remains of its institutional structures”. A tactician at investment banker Morgan Stanley told his mates that “what we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process”. A US economist summed up the global need: “Any reform must be disruptive on a historically unprecedented scale. An entire world must be discarded”.
The South African version was uniquely cynical. In 1993, in the course of the negotiations that ended apartheid, the outgoing regime tried unsuccessfully to cling on by proposing constitutional changes - a decentralised federation, reserved ethnic seats - that would have weakened the African National Congress (ANC) Government by dispersing the power of the central government. These were traditional gambits and recognised as diversions by key ANC personnel.
Naomi Klein, Penguin, Victoria, 2007
Some years into the Nikkei’s* prolonged doldrums a serious looking man on TV said he was hoping for a major earthquake to hit Japan. As it’s on a fault line Tokyo is sure to get one sooner or later, the suit assured the camera, and sooner would be better. If Tokyo fell over, it would have to be rebuilt. This would provide a powerful stimulus to domestic investment, the lack of which had been holding back Japan’s stock market. *Nikkei is a stock index of the Tokyo Stock Market. Ed.
It sounds like satire, but there was no sense of irony in the remark. That’s because it was a conventional piece of economic analysis, offered in the context of a discussion about global markets. Of all the cliched phrases favoured by financial commentators, the notion of “creative destruction” might be the most popular of all. What better way to boost the Japanese economy, which was becoming deflationary, than by putting the country’s vast savings into something more potent than a tiny bit of bank interest? Capitalist economies need growth and expansion.
Among the money men violent slogans abound, so much so that we tend not to notice them. Naomi Klein thinks we need to. Her starting point is “shock therapy”, the 1990s’ version of the ideology. Had her book detailed the uses of “shock therapy” it would have been valuable, but it would not have been indispensable. Others have told the sorry tale and told it well. Klein makes no claim to having covered new ground or to being an economist. Amid her copious acknowledgements, she admits to having asked for a crash course on the theories of neo-liberalism. She’s too modest. “The Shock Doctrine” offers an original and stimulating synthesis*.
*Klein notes the contributions of writers we’ve discussed in previous issues e.g. John Perkins: “Confessions Of An Economic Hitman”, Antonia Juhasz: “The Bush Agenda” and Stephen Kinzer: “Overthrow”, all reviewed in Watchdog 112, August 2006, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/12/08.htm; also Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalization And Its Discontents”, in Watchdog 105, April 2004, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/05/10.htm. I’ve previously reviewed other insightful accounts, including those by Noam Chomsky: “Hegemony Or Survival”, Watchdog 106, August 2004, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/06/16.htm; John Ralston Saul, “The Collapse Of Globalism”, Watchdog 110, December 2005, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/10/05.htm; Bryan Gould: “The Democracy Sham”, Watchdog 114, May 2007, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/14/03.htm; Sharon Beder: “Suiting Themselves”, Watchdog 115, August 2007, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/15/09.htm.
Neo-Liberalism: Selfishness & Self-Deception
Neo-liberalism touts itself as a new science, yet it is based on a series of very old assumptions. It pretends to rationality, claiming to be giving us a true account of human nature, alternatives being merely false. But the basic premise on which all is based - that our species is selfish, always seeking to maximise personal gain - is as overt a prejudice as any. Self-deception is at the core of neo-liberal theory and its truths are really hopes. It needs human nature to be this way because that would validate the championing of the rich and powerful. Klein is showing us that, rather than the cool technocrats of their own publicity, neo-libs tend to be frenetic propagandists. They have invented an implausible economic actor for whom every social occasion is a market transaction.
Klein gives an extensive account of Milton Friedman, guru of what has come to be known as the Chicago School. Friedman has a cult following for lecturing his disciples that “only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically possible”. This is the origin of shock therapy as an explicitly political phrase. The patient, the moderate welfarist economies of the post-war West, could have been treated in outpatients and sent home, but then he would have continued to live his irrational, unselfish life. So Dr Friedman summoned the orderlies to wheel him into the operating theatre.
“Capitalism And Freedom”, Friedman’s seminal work, came out in 1962, mostly - and fortunately - ignored. The “politically possible” moment arrived in the early 1970s when Chile elected Salvador Allende as President. Being reformist, the new Government might have challenged the US transnationals, and Chile’s tradition of democracy was a threat to the reliable dictatorships in the rest of Latin America. The result is well-known. In the name of “individual freedom” Allende was murdered (in the “first 9/11” i.e. on September 11th, 1973) and fascism was installed in the form of General Pinochet, a fervent admirer of Friedman.
The election of true believers Margaret Thatcher in the UK, in 1979, and, in the next year, of Ronald Reagan in the US, gave legitimacy and influence to neo-liberals. As self-styled revolutionaries, Maoists of the Right, the Friedmanites admitted no deviations from the one true path. That way lay temptation. In Klein’s words: “In order for the ideal to be achieved, it requires a monopoly on ideology; otherwise, according to the central theory, the economic signals become distorted and the entire system is thrown out of balance”. So it works best in a dictatorship like Chile, but, if a parliamentary democracy can be convinced to join the movement, the propaganda value is greater. Enter NZ, which succumbed in 1984. In the heady early days of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, we contended with Chile as the purest expression of the new order (NZ does not feature in the book, probably because our - as we say - clean, green land has a happy reputation).
Three Essential Elements
Klein points to three essential elements to the neo-liberal revolution: privatisation, government deregulation and big social spending cuts. These enable “huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt”. Between Pinochet’s killings and David Lange’s deceptions lies much of the world. Klein tours the trouble spots, showing how crises were created so that the new order could be built amid the rubble of the old. Because none of the world’s societies would choose neo-liberalism, secrecy is always needed *. In Bolivia, which was administered shock therapy in 1985, apparently only five Bolivians knew about the surgery in advance. The five included the head of the army and the head of the police. *The importance of secrecy in a democratic context like NZ is described in my review of “Roderick Deane” by Michael and Judith Bassett in Watchdog 113, December 2006, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/13/11.htm.
Bolivia’s prescription was written by the American economist, Jeffrey Sachs, who also operated on Russia and Poland **. And in 2006 it was revealed that the 1400-page report that had ravaged Argentina after its 1992 therapy had been written in secret by the Wall Street financiers, JP Morgan and Citibank. **These operations Sachs now disowns, claiming they didn’t follow his medication. As Klein found when interviewing him, Sachs has realised primitive market mechanisms don’t always work but he finds it hard to admit he was wrong. These days his public statements about Africa are certainly more responsible.
Klein is cogent in putting into context the various experiments. Whatever political circumstances obtain, the therapists have to be adroit opportunists. The best time to strike is when citizens have other things to think about. Some examples: Yugoslavia, after the 1999 NATO attack; China, in 1989 after Tiananmen Square, and Russia, in 1993 after Boris Yeltsin’s tanks fired on Parliament. Thatcher, who had to contend with a notoriously pragmatic and gradualist electorate, could operate only after the Argentine colonels invaded the Falklands in 1982. She seized the moment to pick a fight with the trade union movement by deploying the State against the coal miners. Then she could begin her privatisation.
Restructuring (this more wideranging term does not figure in Kein’s lexicon) needs a cleared building site. Observing the chaos of Yeltsin’s regime, Richard Pipes, a relieved American neo-lib strategist, said he had been hoping “for Russia to keep disintegrating until nothing remains of its institutional structures”. A tactician at investment banker Morgan Stanley told his mates that “what we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process”. A US economist summed up the global need: “Any reform must be disruptive on a historically unprecedented scale. An entire world must be discarded”.
The South African version was uniquely cynical. In 1993, in the course of the negotiations that ended apartheid, the outgoing regime tried unsuccessfully to cling on by proposing constitutional changes - a decentralised federation, reserved ethnic seats - that would have weakened the African National Congress (ANC) Government by dispersing the power of the central government. These were traditional gambits and recognised as diversions by key ANC personnel.