Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

TVNZ's real problem

The government.

TVNZ is not a fully funded state broadcaster like BBC domestic broadcasting because as a small nation, we probably cannot afford it. Therefore its channels carry adverts, and is exposed to the what Nats are usually proud to say "real business world" out there and needs to compete its way out.

Under the current economic situation, we see countless number of privately owned businesses experiencing significantly reduced profit, or even go into deficit. If you are an investor to a large corporation, you wouldn't expect your dividend to be as high as last year, or you may just get ready to sacrifise your dividend for a year to keep your investment safe.

So Why John Key, aka "the man with real economic sense"  is expecting a unrealistic dividend from TVNZ:

From the Crown's point of view we have $200 million invested in TVNZ, that's the equity in TVNZ, if we don't receive a return on that equity and we don't receive a dividend, that's less money the Crown has to pay for hospital beds, less money it has to pay its doctors and less money it has to pay its teachers.

Nice words, sounds sympathetic, but does it really mean anything? Last year TVNZ paid out $10 million to the government, don't tell me that our health and education system would fail for a shortfall of $10 million dollars.

As TVNZ is going to cut 90 employees, more pressure will be added to the dole queue. So what National government did is, forcing TVNZ to reduce costs by reduce amount of local made programmes (that's what state owned media is for, in my opinion) and axes kiwi jobs to meet government dividend demand so Mr Key can have more money to pay for hospital beds.

I hope those people who will lost their job could find a job soon otherwise the whole thing is just pointless - a large chunk of the few million dollars dividend will be used to pay the added dole queue anyway, when those people really should be working and contributing at least some value back to our society. Now you call that real business sense?

By the way, I remember this government was claiming itself dedicated to keep kiwi jobs.

It's very hard to believe there's no hidden agenda behind this movement.

Weird

Nobody likes to pay taxes, especially Aucklanders and the right. So what happens after government axes the Auckland regional fuel tax proposal? Well,railways have to be built, Auckland needs to move forward, we need to find that money somewhere, and here's how (via Beehive):

• replacing regional fuel taxes with smaller increases in national fuel excise and road user charges, which feed into the National Land Transport Fund
• confirming the government's commitment to Auckland rail electrification
• committing an additional $258 million of the government's capital allocation to land transport over the next two years
• amending the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding to make more money available for state highway construction

I wonder how rural people, especially the nats would think of the first point. But it's a fair measure I have to admit, as the whole country can benefit from a well-funtioning Auckland.

nine-day fortnight work plan released

In one sentence, Government will pay minimum wage of $12.5for up to 5 hours per day to employees who have taken an extra day off. For rest of the scheme:

• Will be available to businesses with more than 100 employees. There are about 1600 companies which fit this category and they employ 580,000 people.
• Will be available to businesses from March 27, 2009 through until December 31, 2010 - but only for up to a six month period within these dates.
• The government’s contribution will be paid direct to employers to give to the workers it has negotiated a voluntary agreement with to reduce work hours to a nine-day fortnight.
• Will be available to up to 10 employees for each averted redundancy.
• Will apply to employees who have been full-time for the two months preceding going into the scheme.
• Is anticipated to be picked up by between 20,000 and 25,000 workers, making the approximate cost $16 million to $20 million.

Overall I'm pretty happy about it, and I think it will be a way reduce redundancies in big companies. In a recession the most import thing to maintain is not just economic growth, but fundamentally, confidence. If employees are given the promise that they will not be made redundant, it will give them confidence, and they are more likely to spend rather than save for the unforeseeable future.

But I do have a mixed feeling about this. Employees are not responsible for the current economic situation, making them suffer should be the last resort to keep this economic going.  There are long suspicions that some employers are using economic recession as an excuse to carry out restructuring. I think this scheme should only be available for companies who are experiencing losses, not just a reduction of profits.   I can see the same greed which was responsible for the current situation, is still in the market. Companies should just accept a significantly reduced profit for now, rather let the same greed take over, dreaming of the high profits they've experienced in the last few years.

The scheme will only work if employers are welling to join it, but I don't think they are. As a employer,  how much can you save from this? Let's assume a company maximises its opportunity, put 10 employee who receives an average $20 wage and work 8 hours a day in this. So the calculation goes like:

13 x 10 x 20 x 8 = $20,800

For a 100 employees company, that's kind of nothing -  make one employee redundant saves more than this, and that size of businesses don't fail for short of 20,000 dollars.

Or maybe the whole thing is just another publicity stunt from John Key?

New Employment Relation Act effective from today

Now your new boss can fire you at will within 90 days.  You chose that,  you voted for it.

This is what National Party is all about. Like the recent job summit, aimmed to "create jobs", but let's face it, it's just a bad publicity stunt. When you see a group of predominantly white, rich bosses sit around talking about "create and save job", you immediately smells something strange. Aren't they the guys who are responsible for the current situation? In fact, to me, it was more like a discussion on how to save their big fat pay cheques.

My suggestions for this ERA is, refuse to sign any contract that has that 90 days clause in it.  Yes I recognise employers need confidence, but 90 days trial period is too long. 30 days is more than enough to see whether a new employee is a lazy bum and lives up to employer's expectations. 90 days is way to long, it just opens a big opportunity for those bad employers out there.

But if you don't have a choice - then sign the contract anyway.

equity under National

Government kills pay-equity inquiries:

The Government has axed two investigations aimed at improving the pay of women as it tries to save money by controlling public sector salaries.

... State Services Minister Tony Ryall said the investigations would "generate an additional form of remuneration pressure that is unaffordable in the current economic and fiscal environment".

I can't see how this National government is different from the one 30 years ago :  socialism for the rich, and capitalism and discrimination  for the poor. If bail out is a valid and effective way to save economy (which I don't necessarily agree), bailing out ordinary people should be as important as bailing out big businesses. Yes business needs to be saved but they can only prosper if there's a market for their products.

This is the same reason as why we need a minimum wage - far right people treat workers like "goods", and apply the basic supply-demand model to human being. In a purely economic sense that's perfectly true, and I can claim that if businesses only pay its workers five cent an hour, we will then have a nice 100% employment rate, but will that do any good to either businesses or workers?

Not to mention this is denying women equal opportunities as their male counterparts had.

There must be a balance, John Key was campaigned as a centrist and I hope he  keeps it that way, otherwise honeymoon could soon end with a backlash as the economy deterioates in the coming years.

The Vision

The government today announced the $500m investment programme on country's infrastructures, including more capial injection on new schools and roads. This will be part of the $9 billion stimulus package.

I have very little knowledge on that $9 billion total package, but today's announcement amused me a little - it may sounds like "new" schools and roads, but in fact most of the them were already planned, and I believe some projects are possibly already on the book. All the government did is to "bring them forward", accelerate the speed.

Now this is bit strange, other countries invest on new things, or improvement of current infrastructure, but we just could not bother to do that - do we really need to bring forward a construction for a bridge so Aucklanders can have a nice holiday without worrying the traffic bottleneck? Or maybe New Zealand is just too small so  there isn't much we can invest on? I'm sure you don't agree with this.

Or even worse, maybe the government is just cutting and pasting some of the planned spendings and relabel it as part of the "package"?

Crisis also means opportunity, an opportunity that could enable us to grow even faster, stronger after the bad times. However, I failed to see how this infrastructure spending plan will help us doing that - where's the investment on new technologies? I don't expect nats to invest on "green stuffs"  , but energy efficient and electrified car/train aren't all about green?

Uncertainty on energy cost was, and still is a huge barrier that have restrained growth in NZ, high and fluctuating  oil prices hurt just about every one bad, and rising demand of electricity requires either more water dam, or an easier and cheaper option of improving what we got now and make it more efficient.

So where's that man with a vision? Sure I cannot find him here.