For me it makes me think of Christmas Eves in Dunedin in my late teens and early 20s. Belting this out with friends before making the call on whether a candlelight service was really a good idea in the circumstances.

So this is for all my friends who I don’t see or talk to often enough- especially Alex, who can actually sing this and sound like Shane McGowan, in tune. Happy Christmas one and all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwHyuraau4Q

In my time as a member of the Labour Party I have done everything from being a branch member to being an MP.  I have always tried to act in what I believe to be the best interests of the Party and the people we work so hard to represent.  It is in that spirit that I am putting my name forward as Deputy Leader in this contest.

While we face significant challenges as we acknowledge our defeat at this election, this is also an opportunity to rebuild our party, both inside and out, and to be an active participant in our communities.  I believe that our approach needs to be equal parts organisation and inspiration.

In terms of organisation I welcome the announced review of the Party.  Our core values endure, I believe we have a strong policy platform, but we must look afresh at all aspects of our organisation. Some specific issues we need to address are the recruitment and nurturing of talent, particularly women, in the party and the process for selecting candidates both in constituencies and on the list.

From this base, we move from organisation to inspiration. We must listen and connect or re-connect with a wide range of New Zealanders. We need to hit the road and hear from New Zealanders about their hopes, dreams and show them that Labour is on their side.

Our campaign must begin immediately.  The first steps are to enrol, engage and inspire the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who did not vote at this election.

In politics I believe there are two fundamental emotions, hope and fear.  There is much to be fearful of in the agenda of a visionless government that will see off our future and see the gap between rich and poor grow.

Where I believe Labour must do better is in inspiring New Zealanders. We must give them hope. Hope that we have the people and the plan that will support them in achieving their dreams, and look after them when they fail. Hope that we will make sure they get a fair go and that we will celebrate their success.

I believe I have the experience and political nous to make sure that our message is heard.  I know that I can hold my own and best any of the National frontbench in Parliament and on the hustings. I believe I can connect and empathise with the wider NZ public. I can help unite the Caucus around our vision of a New Zealand as a country where everyone, no matter who they are is given the chance to achieve their potential and play their part in our success as a nation.

But there has also been a lot of other policy, big and small,  released that shows the hard work done by spokespeople across our portfolios to address the issues in specific sectors. I know there is a lot happening, so here are ten policies that have already come out that you might not have heard a lot about, but address issues that are of significance to many New Zealanders. There are of course loads of other policies, and inclusion in this list is no indication of relative importance, just to give you a flavour.  You can check out all the policies, here.

1. Labour will provide an additional 5,000 fees-free training places for 16 and 17 year olds over 3 years, including 1,000 that have a M?ori mentoring element and 1000 with a Pasifika mentoring element. (YOUTH AFFAIRS)

2. Labour will work with the ITO sector to develop a Creative Industries Apprenticeship, as part of the Modern Apprenticeships Scheme. (ARTS, CULTURE and HERITAGE)

3. Labour will amend the Holidays Act to 2008 settings to protect the rights of workers to time  off for rest and recreation and ensure that all NZ workers have access to 11 days off on pay for recognised public holidays, including Anzac and Waitangi Day. (WORK AND WAGES)

4. Labour will invest $75 million over four years in “e-learning? for low-decile schools, with priority going to schools with year 7 -13 students and the capability to deliver an effective programme . This includes Government funding for students to have individual use of a
mobile device. (EDUCATION)

5.Labour will immediately restore $13 million cut from ACE funding to improve access to adult and community education. (TERTIARY EDUCATION)

6. Labour will create a world sanctuary area in the EEZ around the Kermadec Islands by way of giving this area marine reserve status.(CONSERVATION)

7. Labour will therefore direct Solid Energy not to proceed with its liquid fuels lignite mining proposal.(ENVIRONMENT)

8.We will continue to participate in Trans-Pacific Partnership talks but reiterate our commitment to retaining Pharmac in particular as a bottom line item which must not be traded away. We feel similarly strongly about intellectual property provisions. (TRADE)

9. Labour will increase all one-officer Police stations to at least two officer stations. (SAFER SOCIETY)

(and for Clare) 10. Labour will bring the TV broadcasting industry together to establish a consensus for new Technical Delivery Requirements and a unified national standard for (volume on TV Ads) all broadcasters that reflects international best practice. (BROADCASTING)

Today Labour released our plan for jobs. Its six points and it brings together some key strands of our policy that we believe will drive job growth. The six areas are

• A savings scheme that will provide new investment for New Zealand businesses;

• Support innovation to develop new products to sell to the rest of the world;(including restoring the R and D Tax Credit)

• Change monetary policy to support exporters against a volatile New Zealand dollar;

• Help unemployed youth into training and apprenticeships;

• Stimulate the economy by putting money into the pockets of those who need it;

• Making Kiwi jobs a consideration when issuing government contracts.

The details behind each of these policies is in the attached document. This is about an active government that works with business to create jobs instead of sitting on the sidelines. Its an important building block to owning our future.

Milne says

But the potential disclosure of the contents of that conversation – held only a metre away from the closest reporters – could yet throw a rocket into this election campaign. It is a game-changer.

And therein lies the problem. I am sure as hell not endorsing covert taping of anyone. But this was a major media stunt in a campaign. It was designed to be a public event. As David Farrar has noted if the tape reveals something where Key or Banks is saying one thing publicly and another thing privately, then that gives strong reasons in the public interest to know what was said. Milne uses the langauge “game changer”, which indicates there is something here.

Milne goes on

But it’s the sheer range of comments in Key and Banks’ discussion that is breathtaking – and the pair’s assessment of the prospects of National, Act and NZ First.

Perhaps leadership in ACT discussions? Maybe a discussion about future asset sales? Whatever, this episode has more to play out, and the all guns blazing approach of National against its release indicates there is something of public interest in those tea leaves.

First, John Key appears to want National voters in Epsom to vote for John Banks, or so the media tells us. That is National voters except for him, John Key resident of Epsom, who won’t be voting for John Banks.

Not quite the “clear message” to the voters of Auckland. This is compounded by the use of the well known tactic of clarity and certainty- the double negative. In this case, “not unhappy”.

In the end I think how people vote is a very personal thing but what we are clearly saying is we’re not unhappy if National voters decide to vote tactically

Does that mean ‘happy”, does that mean something less than happy. Who knows? But its curious. If you want people to vote for him, have the guts to actually say it.

And where was poor old Don Brash in all of this. Key is reported as saying he thinks Don Brash is “flexible” and not extreme like Roger Douglas. That is a very recent change of tune from the man he described as ‘hard core’ and ‘very right wing’ over the last couple of years.Maybe we can put the double negative down to the 0.7% poll that will be out this weekend for ACT. I guess that’s what is a called “not an ideal result.”

But today I read two stories in the New Zealand Herald that made me ashamed as a New Zealander. The first is the news that the government has slashed the number of food parcels it hands out by 20% in a year at a time when foodbanks are dealing with more and more individuals and families who need support for the very basics of food. Food parcels are not about anything other than people getting the necessities of life.

Last night in Wellington there was a public meeting on poverty issues where Stephanie McIntyre from Downtown Community Ministry talked about the more than 400 clients they dealt with in the three months to June. They do a great job at DCM, making real and substantive differences in people’s lives, but the current government is making their job much harder by changing policies to make it harder to access food grants.

The government’s approach in my view is privatising dealing with poverty, it is an abdication of responsibility and it is morally wrong.

The second story is an acknowledgement from John Key that the “underclass” he talked so much about in the 2008 election campaign has grown under his watch. He can’t deny the evidence, it is all around from the massive increase in foodbank use, the rise in unemployment to health indicators like the 5,000 extra avoidable hospital admissions among children for respiratory illness and skin infections.

So the PM acknowledges it, great. But he is not a spectator here, he is actually running the government. More can and should be done to directly attack the growth in poverty. It is simply not good enough.

Labour has policies that are directly aimed at addressing this, from the increase in the minimum wage to $15, a fairer tax system including making the first $5000 tax free for everyone, increasing the top tax rate and introducing the CGT. We also will have a comprehensive children’s policy, which as Annette King has already announced will include legislating targets for the elimination of child poverty. And for me that must be the goal. Nothing less is acceptable.

At the forum on poverty last night Brian Easton spoke and he said while it was possible to argue on a technical basis about the best policy response to poverty, the real question to be asked is what are the ethical and moral principles that lie behind the policies. It seems to me to be hard to find an ethical principle that lies behind cutting the number of food parcels or letting inequality and poverty grow.

I think Brian’s question is a legitimate one to ask. So here is my answer. The ethical basis for Labour’s policy at this election is fairness, inter-generational responsibility, inclusion and respect and a belief that if we reduce ineqaulity we will harness all our potential, which common sense tells us will benefit us all. So what’s the ethical basis for National’s policy?

To get one thing out of the way straight up, no one is saying the Government is to blame for the Rena hitting the reef. I am also sure that John Key, Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are as disturbed as I am by the images of the oil on beaches and the death and injury of wildlife. Every New Zealander will want to see the damage from the accident mitigated and the environment cleaned up. What is a legitimate question though is whether faced with the incident the government showed the leadership that we should expect of them and acted as swiftly and effectively as they should have.

My take is that the government were flat footed and to keen to sheet blame and responsibility elsewhere rather than take the leadership role we want our government to take in times of crisis. Someone I worked with once said that people mostly want the government out of their way when things are going well, but they want them there yesterday when things go wrong. I think National got that wrong in the first few days of the Rena incident.

And criticism of this is not just coming from Labour, but also from people who might normally be described as friends of the government like John Roughan, Paul Holmes and even Matthew Hooten. Here is part of Hooten’s NBR column which is not on-line. (h/t Liberation)

Joyce failed totally to comprehend what the Rena grounding meant to the Bay of Plenty’, and ‘He did not see that, as transport minister and arguably the most powerful figure in the government after Mr Key, his role was to lead and improve the quality of the response, and ensure it was sufficiently empowered and resourced. When he spoke publicly, he demonstrated little empathy with locals, telling them there was no point going to the beach to clean up the oil, saying more was on its way and that it could take years to resolve anyway

Then there is the question of whether the government had done the work over the last three years to have us planned for a disaster like this. There are questions here too, with the freeze on funding for Maritime NZ and the failure to put in place the mechanism that would see more of the costs of dealing with the disaster fall on the ship company and less on you and me.

So, in the face of this disaster, we join with all New Zealanders in wanting to protect our beautiful coastline and all those, human and animal who inhabit it. But we also take our role seriously to raise the question- Where was the leadership?, and in this case it was sadly lacking.

What the grant has provided is support for refugees mainly for bridging courses or other courses to meet pre-requisites. While as permanent residents refugees can access student loans, many need support to get to the level to be able to undertake tertiary study. Not having the support can mean that opportunities are missed and refugees dont get the kick start that can allow them to achieve their potential.

Mohammed Amri is one example. He was one of the Tampa boat boys. A bright guy, but with little experience of English or learning in a New Zealand environment, who took language, reading and writing skill courses that got him his start on the way to a degree. Another example is a young woman I met, who’s story is included in the publication by Changemakers Refugee Forum as part of their campaign to see refugees recognised as an equity group. She was 19 and still at school here trying to catch up with her peers. She did well, but was not ready to do tertiary study. She was losing motivation for school, doing long hours working at a supermarket, acting as an interpreter for her family, and wanted to get on with her life. She accessed the refugee study grant, got the support to lift her literacy skills, understand the pecularities of New Zealand langauge, and gain entry to a degree at Victoria University. She’s doing really well.

All of this came from a fund that used about $1.3 million a year. In the grand scheme of the Budget, not that much. But it was a lower priority for National in that particular Budget than extra funding for private schools. I am really proud that Labour is saying we will give some extra support to people who have had to flee their homes, who have endured hardship, so that they may achieve their potential, have a fair go at owning their future, and fully contribute to our society. Its the right thing to do.

An interesting contribution to that debate in New Zealand is coming from Gareth Morgan and Susan Guthrie. Their latest piece appeared in the NZ Herald on-line today.

Morgan and Guthrie highlight the obsession with property speculation, the reliance on commodity prices to keep us afloat, a narrowly based economy and monetary policy and a tax system that fuels the worst of speculative behaviour. These are not new messages from Gareth, but there is more reasonance as we look at a global and national economy defiantly not recovering and staggering (or is that muddling) through the year. He puts it this way

There is a naive single dimension to our economic policy – we either raise or reduce the budget deficit or we raise or reduce interest rates. That’s the sum total of the intellectual capital being applied to managing our economy. That it could be so bereft for so long has led to the persistence of our “structural imbalance”. There is a chronic need for policy enlightenment and a sweeping aside of a simplistic policy orthodoxy that has been rigidly paid homage to for 30 years now.

Now, of course I don’t agree with all of their prescription, but the idea that we have to change the way we think about our economy is the core message, and it is one that Labour has heard and taken on board. We are offering a different way of doing things both from where the current government is, and where we have been.

Monetary Policy. Labour has already announced that we need to change monetary policy to address the structural issues in the economy, including the volatility of the dollar that makes life difficult for exporters and high interest rates that discourage investment in productive parts of the economy. While curbing inflation remains important, having that as the single focus is not working for us. Our policy is to broaden the objectives of the Reserve Bank beyond just controlling inflation to look other issues, such as employment and to support more aggressive interventions to deal with currency speculation.

Fairer Tax System. As noted we are going to introduce a Capital Gains Tax to ensure we tax income in all its forms and start to move toward investment in our productive economy. We also are going to return the top tax rate to 39c over $150,000, the first $5000 tax free and taking the GST of fresh fruit and vegetables

Procurement/Overseas Investment. Labour is going to make important changes to focus to support our own economy. This means new rules on government procurement, that will be compliant with our international ageements, but will require a process that gives Kiwi firms a fair go and will look at a wider set of criteria for awarding contracts including the impact on the domestic economy. We want overseas investment but as announced in 2010 we will put stricter controls on purchases of farm land, monopoly infrastructure, so that we keep control of our assets (and of course there will be no asset sales!).

And there is more to come in terms of innovation and economic development, to build on the R and D Tax Credits, Youth Employment. And more to come in Savings, where we really can build a basis for creating the pool of resources to invest in our own companies, just as Kiwisaver funds have done with Scott Technology.

This post is too long already, so I will come back to some of the social policy issues Morgan and Guthrie raise, but for now I am confident that Labour has a different vision on offer this year. Some of it is policy we have done before, but a lot of it is thinking differently, because as they say a definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.