Budget as
So Thursday was one of those exciting days for political geeks like myself. Yes folks, Budget Day.
So what was in it?
um
yawn
Oh shit, sorry I’m awake now.
So the big story was the announcement of a new work based savings scheme for retirement and for first home buyers. This is in recognition that we’re REALLY CRAP at saving. And why would that be one wonders? Well, for my generation it’s cause we can’t afford it, we’re too busy paying off debt. I got my student loan statement the other day and it told me that in the last 12 months I had payed off $1600 and then given $600 back in interest. Now I know that I’m really lucky that I have an income high enough to make any kind of payment off my loan. I currently earn about 15k more a year than the average childless woman with my qualification. But it isn’t going to last and I doubt I’d get a job paying that high doing the sort of thing I’m good at without leaving the country.
The point is though, I don’t want to leave the country. I want to do work that contributes towards making this world a better place. I want to do work that helps develop a sustainable peaceful Aotearoa. I want to do work that means I can work within a community. Trouble is, in this crap capitalist society in which we live, I aint going to become a millionaire doing this stuff. In fact, I’d be lucky if I got paid at all.
I think it’s about time the government expanded the PACE scheme concept for community activists. I know a number of people who are activists on the dole who get hassled mercilessly because they work to create positive communities. And I know a number of people who were fantastic full-time activists who have had to resort to menial work to pay the bills. Creative, brilliant, skilled, talented people working in crap jobs because our society values PR retards more than creative souls.
So what has the Government done for me in this budget? (cause it’s all about me) Set in place a first home purchasing assistance scheme that I can access in 12 years time, wicked. I’m sure I would’ve saved a bit by then. But the problem is I have all this debt to pay off, money I have had to borrow to invest in getting myself ‘somewhere’ (sorry, still not sure where that is). So I got this cute little thing called a ‘debt mentality’; the idea that if I want to invest in anything I need to do this from a negative starting point. This is remarkably similar to the mentality that is fostered within ‘developing nations’ by the World Bank and co (featuring none other than our former Min of Finance) that if you want to get going in this new fangled sparkly globalised world you have to get in debt. Considering that there is $203.6B in outstanding global debt in this world, it’s great to know that our government is fostering a positive attitude to debt amongst our upcoming generations.
Think I should stop now.
Yay the Brazilian Greens
So Brazil just had the second highest year of rainforest deforestation so the Green Party representatives resigned in disgust.
Repra-fuckin-zent
Things I like
Let’s have a wee positve moment (especially after this mornings diatribe!). I’m going to say stuff I like.
1. Student Protests
Especially when there’s heaps of them even though it’s kind of raining. And they’re shouting heaps and the Minister has to revert to name calling to combat their refusal to believe his bullshit.
2. Making the Minister look like a meanie
3. Discovering trailers for seriously cool looking weird South Korean movies.
4. Looking forward to Friday. Oh yeah, have you got your Green Room launch party ticket yet? It’s going to be SOOOOO good. Mmmm Kora
E tu Kuwaiti wahine!
The women of Kuwait have just won the right to vote and stand in elections. Despite fierce opposition naturally.
Good to hear. Big ups to all the choice chicks that would have worked unbelievably hard and copped tons of crap for making this happen.
Chur!
Do I have stupid tattooed across my forehead?
OK so last night I saw the most offensive ad on television that I have ever seen.
Naturally, it was an ad for ‘feminine hygiene’ products or as I prefer to call them as ‘infiltrative poisonous capitalism swabs’. This ad featured some hot spunky south american chicks and some dodgy looking south american ‘baddie’ and they’re all looking at each other conspiratorially, one chick gets patted down for some reason then next thing there’s supposed ‘good guys’ all around and they’re pushed into a courtyard and surrounded. All the ‘bad guy’s’ look around at the chick who promptly lifts her shirt to reveal a pad stuck to her stomach and underneath? You guessed it, a microphone.
OK SO WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH WHETHER OR NOT THAT PRODUCT DOES WHAT I WOULD WANT IT TO DO?
I remember when I was young there was ads on television which we all joked about. They featured a woman demonstrating how good company x’s product was. She would pour blue liquid on pads and we would all watch as the pad dutifully sucked up the liquid. I remember one evening seeing a stand-up comedian on the news mocking these ads mercilessly because they were so patronising towards women. The key line of her derision was of cause the commonly known fact that blood is indeed red, not blue.
So what the hell has happened in the last decade or two that has got this form of advertising to such a pathetically bad level? Even if I actually regularly used these mainstream bleach poison products I would be offended by these ads? Surely?
Am I a freak? Are there any other women out there as unimpressed with these ads as me?
Ah fuck it, where’s my sponge.
Columbia, the United States and the war on inanimate objects
The Herald is reporting a story about the collapse of the war on drugs in Columbia. Well duh, anyone who has spent 10 minutes learning about the corrupt situation in Columbia would know that there are some serious issues that need dealing with between the government and the drug cartels before any ‘war on drugs’ is going to make any kind of difference.
What concerned me about this story though was the discussion around spraying. What the hell are they spraying with? There are a number of reports around in relation to this spraying. ENN has a Reuters story with the Organization of American States denying any negative impact on human health, pfft, whatever. Common Dreams has a story about the actual contents of the spray:
The aerial spray mixture contains three components: water, an EPA registered formulation of the herbicide glyphosate, and Cosmo-Flux 411F, a surfactant produced in Colombia that helps the herbicide to penetrate the waxy surface of the coca leaves.
Glyphosate is manufactured by the U.S. based Monsanto Corporation and is commonly referred to by the trade name Roundup. Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, meaning that any plant exposed to a sufficient amount of the chemical will be killed.
So surprise, surprise Monsanto is the sponsor of this fine project. Jeremy Bigwood has a very good piece picking apart the relationships. I recommend a read.
It is ridiculous that the US Govt is sponsoring this mass-poisoning of the people, their food, water and soil. It makes me sick.
Picking snot
NRT discussed the season for seasonal workers issues. I agree wholeheartedly about the issues in regards to pay. But it’s not just pay, there are some extreme renegade employers out there. I had a friend working on an orchard in Motueka a few years ago and the supervisor drove around the orchard on a quad bike, barely clothed, making completely innapropriate comments to female workers and was armed. Sure, there are employment laws that cover these things but there isn’t exactly a strong union movement amongst seasonal workers and trying to actually stop this kind of behaviour is exceptionally difficult.
But I have also seen the problems of pay. I had a flatmate who was here on a working visa. He was a qualified horticulturalist and worked in a nursery. His application for residency was denied on the grounds that there are plenty of people who could do his job. Sure, but because the pay was so low, noone would. My friend was the first person this particular nursery managed to employ in six months, even though his employer advertised weekly in an area with high unemployment. Go figure.
Cute sites
If the Destiny Party had their way, is this the stuff we could expect to see in schools? Firstly for girls Iron Hymen and for boys Sex is for Fags.
I think not, don’t know if they get satire, irony, or sarcasm.
I want an abstinence badge.
Milestone alert
I remember being excited when my stat counter hit 1000.
Well, it just hit 5000! Hoorar!
Thanks for reading people, and thanks for all the feedback, both through the comments and via email.
I feel the aroha!
xxooxx
Drinking *hiccup*
Hmm
That cheeky Robson got his Bill pulled out to raise the drinking age back up. It might make first reading tonight but depends on how quick they go through the order paper.
From the Bill:
This bill amends the Sale of Liquor Act 1989 to raise the drinking age to 20 years, strengthen the provisions relating to the supply of liquor to minors,
and provide a statutory restriction on broadcast liquor advertising before 10pm
on any day, as well as extend the current jurisdiction of the Broadcasting
Standards Authority to include the broadcast liquor advertising issues that are
currently dealt with by the Advertising Standards Authority, a self-regulating
industry body.
Little problem in that we don’t legally have a drinking age in this country. It is a purchasing age. So if this goes any further it will either have to be changed to fit with the Sale of Liquor Act or there will be a radical re-think in the way we deal with drug laws.
The explanatory note does go on about the rising figures of alcohol abuse amongst young people but doesn’t mention whether those figures are unusal in relation to the wider drinking stats, we just assume they are.
There is of course, not mention of the fact that when the drinking age was lowered it was done so on condition that a whole lot of stuff happened. Eg enforcing it for a start, and a decent amount of resources get put into addressing the drinking culture. So what happened?
I was about 20 (if I remember right, drunk a fair bit since then) when the law changed. And I went from legally being able to purchase alcohol to not being able to. Why? Cause I didn’t have legal ID. They created this stupid bloody system. The only ID acceptable was a passport (which I didn’t have), or a drivers licence (cars are EVIL!) or a HANZ card (EVIL EVIL!!). Now I had a valid university student ID. It was made out of plastic and my photo was printed on to it and it had my date of birth on it. To obtain this piece of card I had to prove to a number of institutions that a) I existed and b) I wasn’t fibbing about any aspect of my identity. I also had to fork out a few thousand dollars but that’s another story…. But I couldn’t use this student ID card cause it wasn’t ‘official’. But I could pay HANZ (an organisation I DON”T LIKE AT ALL) money to get one of thier cards. But then it was so bloody easy to rip that system off that heaps of people I knew under 18 had these cards. So I boycotted that.
Instead I developed a lovely relationship with my local wine cellar so I didn’t need ID. It was a double bonus. No interferrence with my identity and I got to make friends with the proprietors of a local small business. Nice.
But you get my point. Heaps of people had valid ID that they couldn’t use and heaps of people were ripping off the system that the officials set in place. In short, it didn’t work and they couldn’t properly enforce it.
Then there’s the addressing the culture thing.
I did some research last year about the expenditure of advertising expenditure on alcohol. I was surprised that it had dropped but what was interesting was the shift around on the type of alcohol advertisers were focussing on. You guessed it, low alcohol cheap stuff. So they dropped the spending on expensive spirits and moved it to cheap beer. Hmm
Those older readers out there may also remember how wholesaler store layouts changed. There was more colour, more specials and more cheap crap.
So how is this addressing the culture? Hmm? eh? huh?
Especially when you consider these facts:
· There is a trend in alcohol advertising towards use of a broad range of media promotion methods such as sponsorship, competitions and special promotions, and to exploit new, unregulated media. Internet controls on alcohol marketing are virtually non-existent and regulation will demand concerted international effort.
· Sponsorship by the alcohol industry has become common in key areas of popular culture including sport, music, film, fashion, television. There is also growing involvement of the alcohol industry in educational institutions. By extending its sphere of influence into these regions, the alcohol industry is maximising youth vulnerability to advertising and their important market potential. Sport is the most developed example of this trend – it has a large youthful audience who are a valuable investment for the alcohol industry in establishing the future long-term adult drinkers. In New Zealand, an unhealthy dependence of sports clubs, teams and events on financial support from breweries has been allowed to develop.
· The alcohol industry has moved with shifts in youth culture by producing new products heavily branded and targeted to respond to these changes (Jackson et al. 2000). Research suggests that new product development by the alcohol industry is having an impact on young people’s drinking and is associated with increased drunkenness and dangerous behaviour. (Cooke et al. 2002)
· The alcohol industry’s marketing budgets dwarf its expenditure on supporting educational and community activities. In 1998 there was approximately $52 million worth of product and sponsorship advertising on television, radio, magazines and press (AC Nielsen, 1999).
(ref: parliamentary library briefing thing)
OK so before I rant on too much. There are a number of wee points in the Bill that I might address later if it gets to committee and I have to make a submission *sigh*. But yeah, in summary, the Bill is stupid, throw it out, young people Vote Green before those old bastards blame you for everything.
Oh yeah, and thought Nandor’s release about this Bill in relation to Youth Week was quite witty.