The Alliance can’t believe the blinkered attitude of the boards of the Government Superannuation Fund Authority and the National Provident Fund who decided to continue their $150 million dollar investment in fossil fuels.
Apparently, for these ostriches, the existential risk to humanity and the destruction of the ecosystem must be balanced against ‘financial risk and reward’ and the possibility of ‘an attractive return at the right price’.
Continue readingThe huge turnouts last week for the climate marches throughout the country indicate that finally people are worried. It is dawning on people that we can longer ignore global warming and all its implications for our country and our planet.
It would be easy to descend into doom and gloom because the situation does appear hopeless. But it does not need to be hopeless – yet. The situation is only hopeless if those in positions of economic and political power insist in carrying on the way they have done for the past half century.
Continue readingThe first rule of capitalism is that everything must make a profit. The second rule is that the profit must increase each year. The economy must keep growing. This means more and more raw materials are used up and more and more energy is used up, much of it from non-renewable sources. It means more emissions and more pollution of the environment. And more and more old stuff to get rid of so the newly produced stuff can be sold. Because that’s the only way profits can keep growing. Continue reading
The day has finally come. The kids have worked out that today’s so called ‘adults’ are literally stuffing up their future. They are taking to the streets to let us know how they feel about this. They are angry. They are upset. They want to put a stop to it. And if the adults know what’s good for them, they’d better start listening. Business as usual is not going to cut it with the younger generation. Continue reading
Despite the hype, a capital gains tax is nothing to do with most of us. For those of us who earn our income by working for a wage or salary, it is irrelevant. A capital gains tax only affects people trying to make money out of money, for example by buying and selling property or shares. Most of those people are to be found in New Zealand’s top 10% of earners.
And fair enough. Why should wealthy investors not pay their fair share of taxes on the money they earn, like the rest of us? Continue reading
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum starts in Davos this week. It is to be officially attended by world political and business leaders – and unofficially, hopefully, by lots of not-for-profit and protest groups whose goals for people and the planet do not include how to make the most money for themselves. Continue reading
The way we do recycling is rubbish. It is rubbish because the main goal has been to make money out of it.
In New Zealand, local councils thought they could make money by saving the costs of running their local landfills. Companies thought they could make money by collecting it up, doing a bit of rough sorting and shipping off the raw materials to somewhere else where labour is cheap and worker health and safety and environmental regulations next to non-existent. Places where there were plenty of people willing to clamber over the piles of imported ‘recyclables’ pulling out the stuff that is clean enough and easy enough to reprocess, for next to nothing in wages. And with no idea of the damage being done to their health, and the health of the environment they lived in, by exposure to many of the items in the piles. Continue reading
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last week that she is open to having a debate on taxpayer funding for political parties. And that she personally would “like a scenario where political parties did not have to fundraise.”
We say, “bring it on.” Our current election funding system is an affront to democracy. It allows wealthy individuals, businesses, and interest groups to put undue pressure on existing political parties by way of large donations. And as we have seen in the past two elections, only the very wealthy are in a position to form new political parties and seriously contest the election. Continue reading
I am a Co-convener of the Alliance party and I was an organiser for TPP Action Dunedin. I have made a number of submissions detailing the views of many New Zealanders and the potential impacts on the health and well-being of our land and people from the type of multinational investor led trade treaty that we have seen with the CPTPP, RCEP, and PACER plus.
I believe we need to recognise that this old style of trade agreement has led us down the dead end road of unsustainable economic activity which takes place only to increase investment returns. We need to think differently about trade, view it through the lens of our knowledge about climate change and consider the well-being of our trading partners. Trade should be a vehicle to increase human well-being, it should be fair and it should encourage only sustainable activity. We know that inequality is a major contributor to social unrest in the world today and that resources are not fairly distributed. Fair trade does not take advantage of less powerful trading partners, exploit workers, or deplete natural resources. It allows the free flow of knowledge and encourages co-operative activity. Continue reading
Great excitement in the financial world – on Friday 3rd of August, Apple became the world’s first trillion dollar company. A mind-blowing amount of money that is more that the economic output of New Zealand and a host of other countries.
We can’t deny that Apple has developed great products. This article was written on a Macbook. But the company has also avoided paying taxes as much as possible. Apple had $811 million in sales in NZ in 2017, yet managed to whittle its profit down to $29.7 million (ODT 4 Aug). That would mean cost of sales was a whopping 96% of income – or some very creative accounting. For over a decade, Apple reputedly paid very little in taxes anywhere. Continue reading