Labour Party Policy Analysis: Youth Employment

OK, it is a new season. Well, yes, it is the first day of Spring but it is also hunting season for dopey politicians as we are just under 3 months from the November 26 general election.

I will from today relaunch Political Animal and comment with much more frequency - as I did in 2008 - on the comings and going of those that have been brave or foolish enough to put themselves up for public office.

Unlike the previous incarnation of this blog though, I will focus mostly on party policy rather than who has slept with who, who is sticking the knife into Phil Goff or the latest nonsense that comes from the mouth of Murray McCully or Hone Harawera. I will leave that to the guys and girls at Whaleoil, Tumeke, The Standard and the other blogs that focus on Wellington rather than how these dropkicks affect the man or indeed woman on mainstreet.

I will rank the policy out of 10 in terms of its usefulness and all importantly the cost to the taxpayer.

With that bollocks over with we will start by looking at the Labour Party and the policy they released today in respect to "youth employment".

"Labour would turn dole payments into apprenticeships subsidies to tackle youth unemployment rates, leader Phil Goff said today.

Mr Goff unveiled a $251 million package aiming to leave the 24,000 currently unemployed teenagers either earning or learning within three years.

The four-year plan follows youth from school into education or the workforce.

It suggested converting dole payments into an $8700 subsidy to fund 9000 apprenticeship placements.

"Our package will convert dole payments into incentives for employers to take on additional apprentices. We will match skill training within and outside of schools with real job opportunities," he said.

The package also suggests introducing 5000 new training places for 16 and 17 year olds and 1000 new group and shared apprenticeships.

Mentors would be set up for at-risk school leavers, so they could be encouraged into a job or employment opportunities.

"We will build on proven programmes such as Gateway, the youth transition service, tertiary high schools and trades academies, and the Conservation Corps," he said.

Mr Goff said the four-year package would be paid for from revenue from Labour's proposed tax plan.

"However we will reprioritise $80 million from existing schemes, with $58 million going to the apprenticeship subsidy instead of dole payments, giving a net total cost of $171 million over four years." NZ Herald, 1 Sept 2011

All good stuff but this has been tried by Labour and other political parties before and failed. In the previous Labour Government they turned out thousands of individuals trained in much needed skills such as scuba divers and media personal just to name a few. When politicians get involved in things like this they have always failed. Training has never met demand in the market and millions have been lost in the process.

The kicker for this policy though is that it would involve borrowing at least $170 million to fund it and as we know the country really cant afford this kind of borrowing and Labour say they will pay for this eventually from new taxes that they will introduce.

Not an original idea but Labour at least are getting some policy out there instead of concentrating on rolling their leader and they should be respected for that.

Their Youth Employment policy gets a 4 out of 10 from me.

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Darren Rickard 2011

Darren Hughes Saga: A Question of Leadership

The issue over Darren Hughes and his sexual dalliances with young boys is more of a side issue if you can get over the image of a distressed, naked teenager running down the road away from Mr Hughes abode a few weeks ago.

What is at issue here as far as politics goes is Leadership and the failure of Phil Goff to be open and honest with first his own voters and then the New Zealand public at large.

Did he really think he could keep this quiet?

On that issue alone one would have to question his decision making on.

When you drill down further though there are also moral and honesty issues involved here.

What kind of leader tries to hide a sexual offense of a subordinate and then tries to deflect appropriate criticism brought on him by blaming the Government for "leaking the information to the media"?

Darren Hughes is also the chief whip of the Labour party, responsible for keeping Labour colleagues in line, how is he supposed to be the arbiter of good judgement if his leader allows him to trip the light fantastic all over the country with every teenage boy that takes his fancy?

Mr Goff has been aware of Darren's track record for hitting on teen boys as least as far back as Christmas 2009, where he hit on another boy at a Labour Party shindig so what on earth was Goff doing allowing Darren Hughes to continue in his role when there was so much evidence that Hughes was not fit for the job?

The answers he has given to defend his series of bad decisions just doesn't satisfy the public at large let alone Labour supporters.

Under pressure he has looked ineffectual, evasive, very uncomfortable and dishonest.

You have to ask yourself, is this a man you want leading your country post November 26?

Anyone for Gingernuts and a cup of tea?

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c Darren Rickard 2011

The Vietnam apology that rings hollow

When NZ withdrew its troops the trauma for many of us was just beginning. We were brought back on a civilian aircraft in civilian clothes and were told to get off the aircraft and go away. The official word from the army was not to tell anyone you'd been in Vietnam. We were aliens in our own country. A march down Queen Street in Auckland turned into a riot. We were pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables. People were screaming out 'baby killers!' That wasn't much good for the psychological state of the soldiers who had just returned from a war zone. Some returned soldiers suffered physical and psychological injuries. I would think the problems (for vets) have been created out of neglect. Neglect on the part of the government, neglect on the part of society and to some extent neglect on the part of the army."

Rick Thame Victor Five Coy


Helen Clark, Phil Goff and a large number of other Labour Party members are going to "apologise" on behalf of the New Zealand Government this Thursday 29 2008 over Vietnam Veteran's appalling treatment by the government of the time and subsequent administrations. There was no government assistance for soldiers as there was in other wars, no welcome home, no acknowledgment of the bravery shown in battle against the Vietcong and they were told to shut their mouths and not talk about their horror again.

Many Vets committed suicide, became hospitalized with mental problems and have a myriad of health problems. Some of these things also happened to subsequent generations of family members.

They will never forget what happened, during the war and after.

I just have one question.

Will Helen Clark, Phil Goff and her Labour colleagues personally apologise for spitting in the soldiers faces during the Queen Street riots?

It must be election year.

c Political Animal 2008

Labour pollaxed by public opinion

Just a commentary about polls and what they might mean.

Now Labour have been trailing National in the polls since around October/November 2007. A perfect storm of sorts hit the lefties then, when their moralistic finger pointing over the Electoral Finance Act and anti smacking law backfired and coincided to piss off even their own deluded voters.

The first big swing to National showed an almost 20 point lead over Labour with a lower polling for John Key as most preferred leader and several polls since then have showed more or less the same results, except John Key is now the most preferred Prime Minister.

There has been one poll that had pegged the National lead back to around 10 points but it is the trend in the polls that needs to be taken into account. The trend is clearly in favour of a National Government, by a country mile.

In the months since, Labour have accepted secret donations, denied their part in rising costs to families and had major parts of state run departments like Education, Health and policing limp from crises to crises.

In addition, last month the private property rights of New Zealand and foreign shareholders in Auckland International Airport were trampled on when retrospective law, which this administration is fond of passing when it suits their socialist agenda, blocked them from selling their shares.

Just yesterday, Labour sunk more than NZ$ 600 million taxpayer dollars, with billions more to come, into an inefficient,loss making railroad company because they think it will buy them votes in November.

Who said our economy was struggling?

These additions to Labour's poor track record are going to will no doubt swing polls even wider. In National's favour.

Even though Labour are going to try and buy the 2008 election, as they did during the 2005 spend-fest, and with stolen taxpayer money no less, it is looking like a right royal massacre for Labour come polling day.

Related Political Animal reading

Labour first to break own Electoral law
Sign the anti smacking petition

c Political Animal 2008

New Zealand Herald gets nasty over Electoral Finance Bill

I have never seen the likes of this before in my life. The New Zealand Herald has used its entire front page today to rail against Helen Clark and the Sisterhood over their attempt to buy next years election by using their Electoral Finance Bill to make previous illegal spending of taxpayer money, to promote themselves, legal and to stop debate during an election year.

The Herald, usually left leaning, has come out strongly against the bill and should be congratulated for their strong stand.

This bill, if passed through in November, will put New Zealand in the position that many dictator states now find themselves in. A Government that will stop at almost nothing to get re-elected and a population that wont be able to have their democratic right to voice opposition and if they do so they could be imprisoned.

New Zealanders as a whole don't seem to be angry about this bill and what it means. They should be. Is it that we just don't care that our democracy will be no longer or are we just too stupid to see what is happening?

Lenin, Marx, Mao and Hitler would have be proud of this bill.

C Darren Rickard 2007




The Herald Editorial

Editorial: Democracy Under Attack

5:00AM Monday November 12, 2007

When is the Government going to get this message: democracy is not a device to keep the Labour Party in power.

Practically every other participant in New Zealand politics - not only parties but other interested organisations and especially guardians of political rights - has voiced concern at the implications of the Electoral Finance Bill introduced to Parliament more than three months ago.

The Human Rights Commission has described the restrictions on election activity as a "dramatic assault" on fundamental rights which "undermines the legitimacy of political processes".

The Law Society says the bill would "make participation in our parliamentary democracy an arduous and perhaps even legally dangerous undertaking for ordinary New Zealanders".

They say this because it would be illegal in election year for any organisation other than a registered political party to spend more than $60,000 (perhaps a couple of full-page advertisements) to publicise a cause that might be deemed political.

The restriction is opposed by some of Labour's closest allies, such as the Post Primary Teachers' Association, which fears for its ability to campaign for educational policies.

In the face of near-universal condemnation, the bill should have been withdrawn. Instead it will be tweaked to dilute some of its worst features. But the attempt to restrict non-party participation in election discussion will remain.

Labour seems determined to use the time it has left to skew electoral laws in its favour.

Not only does it mean to make election debate the preserve of political parties, it has introduced this month a second electoral outrage - a bill to extend the law legalising the use of public money for political purposes that were ruled improper by the Auditor General after the last election.

The Clark Government's refusal to bow to public opinion on this subject beggars belief. It was staggering enough last year that Helen Clark and her lieutenants could not understand why nobody else regarded their electoral pledge card as innocent information.

Now, having grudgingly repaid the public purse, they are hell-bent on giving themselves the right to raid it again.

If these bills become law, politics will be largely confined to registered parties, and they will have to be able to use parliamentary funds for election campaigns.

Both measures are designed to favour the party that has devised them. Labour fears independent campaigns by the likes of the Exclusive Brethren much more than National fears the efforts of the PPTA or the Council of Trade Unions. And Labour believes it needs public money to balance covert contributions to the National Party.

Parties have different advantages. If National has more well-heeled donors, Labour probably has the more committed and articulate foot soldiers.

National's supposed advantages were of less urgent concern to Labour when it was polling well. Now in desperation it wants to screw the scrum. It has succumbed to the old conceit of the Left that the interests of the people are identical with its own.

The interests of any healthy democracy lie in unrestricted debate, not laws that favour incumbents with public finance and suppression of free speech.

If these bills pass, they will be Labour's epitaph.

C NZ Herald 2007

The Black Economy makes Sense

No the title of this post isn't really about slave labour but it might as well be.




New Zealanders have been beaten over the head over recent years regarding tax cuts. Labour has been taxing and spending their way through the last 8 years and National have promised to give back the stolen booty should they seize the Treasury benches in 2008.

What have these high taxes been doing to our economy and what do they do to economies in general though?

If New Zealand Inc was a business, apart from the fact that it would be a very small one on a global scale, its shareholders would be demanding higher dividends, more accountability for company spending and more investment back in the "business".

The high rate of tax removed from NZ Incs balance sheet hasn't gone back into productive spending, it has really been taken out of the business completely, washed through many levels of management and then spent on fast cars, big houses, expensive chocolate biscuits and left handed screw drivers for the company executives and their friends.

Certainly not the kind of spending that produces income and also not sustainable in the long run.

If this huge amount of tax money was allowed to stay in the business of New Zealand Inc then the company would clearly be manifold times better off than it is now and we would all benefit from some quite large special dividends.

Lowering taxes actually stimulates economies and business and in the long run more tax is collected because the business functions allot more efficiently because capital is not tied up or wasted in pockets burning to spend it on wasteful things.

One only has to look at economies with low tax rates to see how well they do. Ireland and Singapore are two excellent examples of how well economies do when they are not burdened with the weight of high taxes.

Of course the "black economy", where there is no tax and only two participants, the buyer and the seller, involved in the transaction, is the single most efficient form of economy or business there is.

The way of the world of recent decades has been to cut out the "middleman", chain stores like Walmart and The Warehouse get goods delivered directly to their warehouses instead of buying through an importer and most retail now works this way.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the middleman not longer taking his cut is business done through the Internet.

Musicians, writers, movie makers , individuals auctioning their household furniture and a whole host of entrepreneurs are now doing business without using a go between with his hand out taking a cut of your income.

It is so efficient, why wouldn't you!

This is why the Internet works so well for business. It is most like how the black economy in the "bricks and mortar" world works.

Lets strip out those extra burdens to business and economies, the high taxes, and then we will all prosper for our hard work, as we should.

Clearly there needs to be some sort of nominal tax, of about a 10% maximum, to allow defence and police to function but any more than that just encourages waste and inefficiency.

I wont hold my breath but it is worth writing about so at least it might plant a seed in some of my dear readers heads.




c Darren Rickard 2007

Duck Season Extended: Trevor Mallard must go

Trevor takes out the Trash


You don't get comedy written this well. Trevor Mallard took a swing at Tau Henare and him square in the face in a Parliamentary corridor yesterday.

Mallards motivation was the taunting by Henare in chambers about Mallards personal life falling about his ears.

The main spark to the big ducks fire was the National Party member Henare calling Mallard a hypocrite for abusing Don Brash in Chambers last year about leaving his wife for a new partner 20 years ago, while all the while Trev had left his wife or was possibly cheating on her, although that cannot yet be confirmed.

Mallard was one of the collectivists who voted for the anti smacking bill this year, a bill supposedly passed to stop violence. The "h" word is clearly appropriate again.

Lets face it, Mallard is one if the most inappropriate people to be in the position he is in.

His nasty, venal and ugly form of politics is more at home in Muldoons era rather than the touchy feely PC hairiness of Helen Clark's far left smothering.

He can dish out the nastiness but cannot take it. He clearly ain't clever enough to use his intellect to retort so has to resort to fisticuffs.

The most interesting part of this whole saga though is the reaction of Clark and her sisterhood to the violence that Mallard has displayed.

If this had been Hehare throwing the punch you can be sure Helen and co would be baying for Henare's job and the language used by her to describe the incident would be forceful and straightforward.

Instead Mallard has apologised and Clark has done her best to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

The double standards are obvious here.

The physical violence of Mallard is of course is only surpassed by the social, psychological and economic violence of Labour Party policies of the last 8 years, so the acceptance by the Labour Party of Mallards despicable behaviour could be at least understood somewhat.

Parliamentary rules require that such incidents require severe punishment even losing ones position in Parliament completely.

Clearly this needs to happen in this case and nothing short of Mallard losing his job should be acceptable to the New Zealand public, excluding nutcase Labour voters of course.

Real violence like this, isn't acceptable. Duckman has made a habit of this kind of offensive stuff, once threatening to place a large Heineken bottle up a prominent persons dark places. This should be the last post for him.

Any other person in any other job would be sacked instantly.

Duckman needs the bullet.


C Darren Rickard

Global Warming: Power to the People

The grab for more taxes by the Labour Government increased this week.

In the week where a NZ$8.7 billion dollar surplus for the last financial year was announced, it seems lunacy that the nanny state would want to steal even more of your money right out of your pocket.

But yes siree Darryl and Sharon New Zealand, you are about to be right royally frisked again because the power you are using is not "sustainable" and therefore you will be taxed to pay for the damage they say you are doing to the environment because of it.

You see the Labour Governments latest tax is being foisted upon us in the form of "fear" taxes, new taxes that will come about because of the left and Greens adherence to the lunatic man made "global warming" lie.

I'm not here to argue the merits of the man made "global warming" movement because quite frankly it has none.

The "science" on which it is based is severely flawed despite what the leftist politicians, green freaks and the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and Nobel Prize winner, Al "I'm running for President " Gore tells you.

For goodness sake do some objective reading people!

The sinister undertone of all this green washing from the GW proponents is that it is a push for imbecile individual knuckle draggers like Gore to make money out of the fear and lies that they are spreading and for Governments around the world to raise taxes.

It just so happens that Helen Clarke, the Prime Misinster of New Zealand and her Sisterhood, through the bequest of Jenette Fitzsimons from the Green Party, because they hold the balance of power, seem to be at the vanguard of this movement to tax New Zealanders for living their normal lives.

New Zealand is going to have to rely on wind power and solar energy to power our economy, according to David Parker, the Chief idiot and slopey fore headed one charged to drive Kiwis back to the middle ages.

According to Parker, we need to be driving electric vehicles, using public transport and doing away with old appliances.

Jenette Fitzsimons goes a step further and wants the size of large screen TVs restricted.

Remember these are the people who like to tell us what to do and have changed laws to get us to eat, drink, smoke,watch and listen to what they want us to.

Restricting our right to parent by removing our ability to lightly smack indolent children its another moral crime they are guilty of.

Certainly, Jenette Fitzsimions lack of morals and boundaries also crosses into the financial sphere.

We have our very own New Zealand Al Gore in Fitzsimons.

While Gore is making hundreds of millions of dollars from his ownership of a fund that puts its money into the carbon free environment that he is slavishly advocating, our little Jenette is doing similar stuff here in NZ.

You see Fitzsimons is the 6th largest shareholder in a company called Windflow Technologies, a company that is developing the very technology that she advocates for and has changed New Zealand laws to benefit her company.

Like Gore, Fitzsimons doesn't make her biases clear when discussing the mushrooming of these visual polluters all over our countryside. We cant have Shania Twain having her house show on a ridge near Queenstown eh Jenette, but we can have these monstrosities covering the nation just so you can get rich from your shareholding in WT.

The Green taxes that Fitzsimons and the Clark sisterhood want to impinge on Kiwi individuals isn't about "saving the planet" or reducing pollution.

It is actually about wealthy green tinged individuals making money, state control and raising taxes to re-distribute them to those individuals too lazy to work and to those 3rd world countries who form a bloc in the UN, that want to lay their hands on Western nations money because they have successfully developed their economies and the 3rd world hasn't.

Aunty Helen, Fitzsimons and their lap dog David Parker clearly want to punish those individuals in society that have made a success of their lives through hard work and innovation and NZ as a whole.

Of course, that is the way of socialism an ism that they all slavishly follow.

The lack of a spiritual and religious base for these 3 collectives and their mates is being fulfilled by the new religion of worshipping at the foot of the Global Warming crusade.

Like all religions the GW movement is based on fairy tales, superstition, fear, greed and jealousy and it is going to end in confrontation.

The sensible among us mustn't be silent against the bias of left wing media that would have you believe that GW is an issue. It clearly isn't.

Let the war begin.


c Darren Rickard 2007

Mike Moore: Return to Muldoonism?

Poor Mike Moore still has most of his lefty ideals intact but at Political Animal we agree that his sentiments below regarding the Prime Minister Helen Clark and her girlfriends in the Labour cabinet slagging off John Key without any substance or truth are spot on.

I made the comment about Clark and comparing her tenure at the helm of New Zealand with Muldoons reign of terror in the 70s-80s.

Seems the similarities of both Governments are apparent to more than just moi.

Clark usually has responses to such outbursts in the media but has refused to comment on this matter.

In combination with her rorting in the polls 2 days ago the Prime Ministers silence has been deafening.





Mike Moore Wednesday 29 2007

In the 1980s, a cruelly funny cartoon appeared of David Lange. It had four panels - the first displayed a smiling picture of David, then slowly, over the next two panels, David's face morphed into a picture of Roger Douglas.

I'm expecting a cartoon of Helen Clark to appear, morphing into an angry Robert Muldoon. He used SIS files on opponents, perfected the nasty technique of personally destroying opponents, intimidating the media (not that you have to muzzle sheep), and used the levers of Government to create stunts, diversions, and buy votes in marginal seats.

Now there's menacing changes to the electoral law to outlaw legitimate funding that could be considered political in an election year. I will publish a book next year, will that be covered? Absent is a necessary rule to disclose who's donating to political parties. Why?

The attacks on possible, probable enemies of the state has even gone overseas to attacks on Australian Foreign Minister Downer for speaking at a National Party conference, when Labour regularly has overseas politicians speak to the troops. The media breathlessly talked of a "secret" meeting.

Downer said he thought it more appropriate to have a private family Tory meeting. He said he advised the New Zealand Government, no big deal, but this was denied. Who do you believe?

Now Labour, as predicted, has tried to put a blowtorch down National leader John Key's 'Y' fronts. Calling him a "rich guy" coming from people, many of whom went to exclusive schools, enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, and didn't even have to work during university holidays is a bit much.

Even the normally sensible Phil Goff has joined the chorus, hoping to ingratiate himself with left-wing MPs for later. Aspirational politics, an inclusive economy and social mobility was once Labour's strongest economic and social policy credential.

This politics of personal destruction is fearful. Why is Labour so good at it? Because we practise on each other.

Helen Clark is superb at it, she's destroyed more National leaders than any other Labour leader. Come to think about it, she's dispatched more Labour leaders than anyone else too. Now Labour is planning a major re-shuffle. It's needed.

We have the largest Cabinet in the Western world per head of population. Killing the wounded is the hardest job in politics, particularly if they have been loyal subjects.

They are bled slowly, swirling rumours appear, planted from Beehive sources, then, when the victim is anaemic, too exhausted to fight back, someone is dispatched to put the pillow over their head. If Helen can replace half of her Cabinet and keep the show together, it will mark her out as one of the greatest political managers ever.

It's very hard. Muldoon's circle of close mates got smaller and weaker as he got older too. Exactly what does the "consort" Judith Tizard and the legion of Ministers outside Cabinet actually do?

Perhaps it's good they don't do much. They manage the remarkable feat of being self-important, expensive, trivial and irrelevant at the same time.

John Key just has to keep his head down, and is happy to campaign as "Labour with tax cuts", sort of like playing a vacuous political air guitar. As for Winston Peters, our Foreign Minister still seems to hate foreigners.

He can't speak about hospitals without talking of Third World diseases and Third World people, the Central Bank policies are about, he claims, promoting speculation and money-lenders (code word), Dubai investment in New Zealand is naturally bad, but at least the anti-Asian and Muslim stuff has been shelved for a while.

Rodney Hide seems to have rejected capitalism for narcissism and is destined to be a talk-back celebrity. The Greens and the Maori Party have locked up their small market niche and go unquestioned by the media.

The major political parties don't scrutinise them or test them in Parliament because they will decide who forms the Government. Labour could still form the next Government, even if we get fewer votes than National. Under MMP, a silver and a bronze trumps a gold medal.

Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to slip down the OECD ladder of successful economies. World growth is robust at 5 per cent, Australia will grow at 4 per cent. New Zealand half that. Labour productivity was close to zero in the last year, down from 2.7 per cent, 1992-2000. New Zealand's tax ratio is 43 per cent of gross domestic product, Australia's 35 per cent. Australia's spending on a ratio of GDP is 34 per cent, New Zealand's 41 per cent (close to France).

These are huge differences, and getting bigger. That's why an Australian will earn 30 per cent more than a Kiwi, and 500 Kiwis leave each week for better opportunities.

The Government's response? Run a media campaign in Australia telling people to come home!

* Mike Moore is a former Labour Prime Minister

c NZ Herald & Darren Rickard 2007