Excellent article and makes my blood run cold. A total repudiation of the New Zealand way of life. But how the hell do we stop it? It will be interesting to see if the recent upswell in public Submissions has any effect on those particular issues.
100% Agree CambridgeD, NZ will look more like the US soon. What a diabolical situation. It is excellent that we have started to wake up and write submissions, but aside from feeling great for having had our say I do not believe that our submissions will make much impact on this cruel, greedy, incompetent government. I initially thought Luxon lacked the nous, character and leadership skills to protect the people of NZ from the full scale neoliberal agenda, I now think he is fully in on it. I feel like we are witnessing a slow moving train wreck!
Yes Luxon is on it, he’s the same as Seymour he’s aligned to the Extreme Right Atlas Network organisation based in America which New Zealander Debbie Gibbs chairs.
Her wealthy father Allan Gibbs is a founding board member of ACT, very influential and a substantive donor to ACT. In terms of National; Willis, Bishop and Brown are Atlas aligned and there are probably other Ministers!
Luxon knows exactly what the neoliberal game is and what he’s doing!
You’re so right. But how do we get that information out to the General Public? It needs financial resources and powerful lobbying, which I doubt we have, but which Those Others have a-plenty. The NZ public CAN be motivated (witness the Tiriti and RegStds bills response) - what motivated them then?
In South Africa, coporations and neoliberal organisations have successfully propagated the idea of privatisation being intrinsically good for the people and nationalisation will destroy the economy. It’s fascinating.
A CANADIAN CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT WILL Privatize SOCIAL PROGRAMS,ENFORCE AUSTERITY ON TAX PAYING WORKING CANADIANS AND GIVE CORPORATIONS MORE TAX CUTS AND SUBSIDIES TO MAKE MORE PROFITS.
However hard Eric the hired help tries to argue otherwise, there is generally only one winner from privatising essential assets - and it’s not the public.
The nonsense peddling here would take me a week to respond to but perhaps a few points.
You don’t understand the nature of markets - places where individuals exchange goods & services freely and voluntarily to meet their needs. They are a natural evolution of specialisation of labour.
You don’t understand the nature of businesses, including but not limited to public companies - organisations that marshal resources to meet to needs & wants of individuals - again voluntarily, and which do not survive if they cannot meet them efficiently.
You don’t understand the nature of government - using the coercive powers of the state to tax & regulate private, ie voluntary, activity.
It is a legitimate debate about the extent to which state power should be allowed to interfere with individuals’ voluntary choices but the last century provides ample evidence that countries with less government taxes & interventions have provided their citizens with greater prosperity as well as freedom.
Public ownership of assets and public provision of services is not the natural order of things and governments should be held to account by the citizens they tax & regulate.
You say privatisation costs public sector jobs but nationalisation similarly costs private sector jobs - the best outcome depends on where the jobs are most productive. Again the evidence is that private ownership leads to greater productivity.
Ideological opposition to privatisation is just that - dogma.
Atlas is a transparent organisation. It’s championing of freedom, liberal democracy & capitalism is quite open for all to. Conspiracies are more likely to be found elsewhere.
Thanks but I fear that it’s you who don’t understand the nature of these concepts. I won’t argue your point by point regurgitation of the libertarian/corporate party line. And Atlas is far from a transparent organization. It is a lobbying front for corporate interests. It was explicitly set up for that purpose and uses rhetoric about freedom and democracy to undercut any governments that are unfriendly to corporate interests. You should know better than to trust what corporations and lobbying groups tell you about their intentions. Read a bit of history.
And feel free to take as much time as you would like to give examples of the increased efficiency and delivery of privatisation of public services. I can wait.
You clearly have ignored how this plays out in reality. The private sector will optimise profits… guess what happens when you give it a monopoly position. Study uk water and transport privatisation illustrate this perfectly.
Excellent article and makes my blood run cold. A total repudiation of the New Zealand way of life. But how the hell do we stop it? It will be interesting to see if the recent upswell in public Submissions has any effect on those particular issues.
100% Agree CambridgeD, NZ will look more like the US soon. What a diabolical situation. It is excellent that we have started to wake up and write submissions, but aside from feeling great for having had our say I do not believe that our submissions will make much impact on this cruel, greedy, incompetent government. I initially thought Luxon lacked the nous, character and leadership skills to protect the people of NZ from the full scale neoliberal agenda, I now think he is fully in on it. I feel like we are witnessing a slow moving train wreck!
Yes Luxon is on it, he’s the same as Seymour he’s aligned to the Extreme Right Atlas Network organisation based in America which New Zealander Debbie Gibbs chairs.
Her wealthy father Allan Gibbs is a founding board member of ACT, very influential and a substantive donor to ACT. In terms of National; Willis, Bishop and Brown are Atlas aligned and there are probably other Ministers!
Luxon knows exactly what the neoliberal game is and what he’s doing!
You’re so right. But how do we get that information out to the General Public? It needs financial resources and powerful lobbying, which I doubt we have, but which Those Others have a-plenty. The NZ public CAN be motivated (witness the Tiriti and RegStds bills response) - what motivated them then?
Excellent synopsis - thank you for sharing it!
In South Africa, coporations and neoliberal organisations have successfully propagated the idea of privatisation being intrinsically good for the people and nationalisation will destroy the economy. It’s fascinating.
A CANADIAN CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT WILL Privatize SOCIAL PROGRAMS,ENFORCE AUSTERITY ON TAX PAYING WORKING CANADIANS AND GIVE CORPORATIONS MORE TAX CUTS AND SUBSIDIES TO MAKE MORE PROFITS.
However hard Eric the hired help tries to argue otherwise, there is generally only one winner from privatising essential assets - and it’s not the public.
The nonsense peddling here would take me a week to respond to but perhaps a few points.
You don’t understand the nature of markets - places where individuals exchange goods & services freely and voluntarily to meet their needs. They are a natural evolution of specialisation of labour.
You don’t understand the nature of businesses, including but not limited to public companies - organisations that marshal resources to meet to needs & wants of individuals - again voluntarily, and which do not survive if they cannot meet them efficiently.
You don’t understand the nature of government - using the coercive powers of the state to tax & regulate private, ie voluntary, activity.
It is a legitimate debate about the extent to which state power should be allowed to interfere with individuals’ voluntary choices but the last century provides ample evidence that countries with less government taxes & interventions have provided their citizens with greater prosperity as well as freedom.
Public ownership of assets and public provision of services is not the natural order of things and governments should be held to account by the citizens they tax & regulate.
You say privatisation costs public sector jobs but nationalisation similarly costs private sector jobs - the best outcome depends on where the jobs are most productive. Again the evidence is that private ownership leads to greater productivity.
Ideological opposition to privatisation is just that - dogma.
Atlas is a transparent organisation. It’s championing of freedom, liberal democracy & capitalism is quite open for all to. Conspiracies are more likely to be found elsewhere.
You don’t
Thanks but I fear that it’s you who don’t understand the nature of these concepts. I won’t argue your point by point regurgitation of the libertarian/corporate party line. And Atlas is far from a transparent organization. It is a lobbying front for corporate interests. It was explicitly set up for that purpose and uses rhetoric about freedom and democracy to undercut any governments that are unfriendly to corporate interests. You should know better than to trust what corporations and lobbying groups tell you about their intentions. Read a bit of history.
And feel free to take as much time as you would like to give examples of the increased efficiency and delivery of privatisation of public services. I can wait.
You clearly have ignored how this plays out in reality. The private sector will optimise profits… guess what happens when you give it a monopoly position. Study uk water and transport privatisation illustrate this perfectly.
AN Act to establish a corporation to hold New Zealand Government property within and outside
New Zealand.
[30 April 1953.
My partner believes this means our government IS a corporation. It doesn’t