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Class Struggle 94 April-May 2011

Bludger’s BudgetBludger’s BudgetBludger’s BudgetBludger’s Budget

As we would expect from a NACT [National/ACT/Maori Party coalition government] regime backed by the MaoriParty, the 2011 Bludgers’ Budget marked a further attack on workers to boost profits. The main attacks were onKiwisaver, Working For Families, Accident Compensation Scheme, and plans for the ‘partial privatisation’ of stateassets. Key boasted that he would create 170,000 new jobs, the same claim he made last year. Of course he wasright - he subcontracted job provision to Australia while NZ lost jobs. Key echoed Treasury’s fraudulent claim thatthe NZ economy would grow at 4%, again similar claims made last year, and reached by Australia towed along by China, while NZ had negative growth. Which country does this guy think he is in: NZ, Hawaii, China or Australia? We, however, not being NACTites or LABOURites, see this budget as reinforcing NZ’s role as a cheap labour country with its assets being primed for sale to China. Welcome to the Great South Sea Islands.

Kiwisaver cutbacks

State cuts back itscontributions, appears to putthe burden equally on workersand employers, but in factallows employers totake it offwageincreases. Thus Kiwisaverbecomes like a US type workercontribution pension fund thatwill amount to workers savingfor their pension, withcompanies contributiondeducted from their wages,while at the same time thestate will cut back onGovernment Superannuation,raise the age of entitlementetc/, thus shifting the burdenof paying for retiremententirely onto workers.That amounts to a real wagecut and a rise in the rate ofexploitation. If Kiwisaver isprivatised then workers mayend up like US workers whohave had their corporate basedpension schemes worth billionsexpropriated to bail outcompany bankruptcies.Privatised pensions have fineprint which says the bosses ownyour retirement as well as yourworking life!

The only secureretirement for workers is toexpropriate theexpropriators, not only thepension funds but all thecorporate wealth the workerscreated through theirgenerations of labour.

Working For Families

Working for Families (WFF) was a Labour Party policy toredistribute tax (actually a tax rebate like the old rebate forchildren) to workers who had families. So it’s part of thewelfare system. The NACTs opposed it when it was introducedbut then left it in place until now when they have reducedthe rebates slightly for familieson higher incomes probablybecause this is ‘middle NZ’ andpotentially NACT voters. And lotsof other nasty, mean cutswhereit hurtsthe most vulnerable.

Privatisation of state assets

NACTs propose the partialprivatisation of a number ofspecified State-ownedEnterprises – namely the fourmajor power generators, SolidEnergy and Air New Zealand. Inan attempt to head off popularopposition to privatisation theNACTs propose ‘partialprivatisation’ i.e. 49% privateownership 51% retained in publicownership. These are majorcorporations with good returns.So what the NACTs are doinghere is grabbing nearly half fortheir own class, here andoverseas. They are trying tosweeten the pill by saying ‘mumand dad’ investors will getpreference and this will boostkiwi ownership and the NZX.Haha, those mum and dad shareswill be gobbled up by corporatesdamn quick.CAFCAhas a goodcritique form the standpoint ofNZ social democracy, that stateownership implies more publiccontrol than private foreignownershipIn fact nationalisation is a form of collective capitalistownership since the state is the state of the capitalist class.What nationalisation does, however, is facilitate workerscontrol as a step towards the socialisation of capitalistproperty.

Class Struggle 94 April-May 2011

So the answer to the NACTs ‘part privatisation’ plans is tofight for nationalised property to be under workers controland for the big private corporates to be nationalised,without compensation, and under workers control.

Accident Compensation Corporation

The NACT regime willprivatiseAccident Compensation;another step towards destroying the working class as the onlyforce able to stop social barbarism and human extinction. Thewhole point of privatising is to open up lucrative business tobosses and make the workers pay for it. It’s an ideologicalreform sure, but it’s driven at every level by profits. Ideasdon’t exist without material roots. Bosses are looking to drivedown the costs of insuring workers on the job and paying fortheir accidents off the job, and insurance companies arelooking to make more profits from user pays. The pro-marketideology is just that. They want ACC privatised to shift thecost onto workers.Reformist complaintsabout the ACC meetingsome noble ideal of the‘community’ sharing thecost of accidents is anonsense for capital whichuses up the flesh andblood of workers, exhaustsnature, and driveshumanity towardsextinction, to make aprofit. Social democraticappeals to someredeeming feature ofcapitalism is merelyavoiding the calamity andweakening our ability tostop it in time. What hasthe Labour Party got tosay about this Bludgers’Budget?

Labour’s shadowBudget

Labour opposes the cuts in the Bludgers’ Budget but has notcommitted itself to restoring them. It has made a point ofsaying that some cuts would still be necessary given theworsening debt situation. It has promised a small tax increasefor high income families and to introduce theEmissionsTrading Schemeon farmers in 2013 to raise $800 m over thenext four years for R&D.

It committed to raising theminimumwagefrom $13 to $15 on hour. NACT and big business hit backwith claim that this would lose 5000 jobs unless Youth rateswere reintroduced. Labourites have countered with researchthat showed that raising the minimum wage in the US and inNZ did not see rising youth unemployment as hours worked byyouth increased (seeTapu Misa).These research findings prove the Marxist view that risingwages are the spur to growth in economic productivity asemployers are pressured to introduce new technology andraise labour productivity to increase profits. The immensegrowth of capitalism over the last 150 years arises from thispressure. The Labour Party recognises the importance oflabour productivity growth but does not see this as increasedexploitation of labour and limits itself to strengtheningorganised labour to win a larger share of income. Yet thestatistics show that in NZ the productivity share of workershas declined to the point that evenreal wages have fallen.While Labour’s reformist perspective of maximising workersincome shares in the imperialist epoch of capitalism indecline cannot stop mass poverty, at least it is not openlycomplicit like the Maori Party in the NACTs bosses’ agenda ofNZ as alow-wage-asset-strippingcountry competing directlywith other low wage countries!

A Workers’ Budget

For the NACTs a ‘workers budget’ is what they have toproduce at the WINZ office to prove they are not ‘bludgers’and can qualify for a benefit. Enough! The real Bludgers’Budget is part of the NACTs attack on workers to create acheap labour force and smash resistance to privatisation andasset sales to China. Labour has yet to take a stand on aBudget that puts workers needs before profits. The Green’s5pointalternative budgethas some immediate aimsbut spoiled by its dreamof managing capitalismas a “sustainable,prosperous and faireconomy” when it has tobe overthrown as aprecondition to oursurvival.The closest we got to aWorkers Budget inParliament was whenHone Harawira ofTeMana Partydescribed theBludgers’ Budget as the“Key / Turia / Brash“Watch me clap while mypeople get shaftedagain” Budget. I haveseen GST go up, foodprices go up, petrolprices go up, houseprices go up,unemployment go up, while the only thing to come down istaxes for the rich, and I intend to propose a radical wayforward that will: • ease the plight of the poor • scare theshit out of the rich • and give Maori hope for a better future

We say Enough! Tumeke! Outrage! Indignity!

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Reverse the Budget cuts!

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Jobs for all on a living wage!

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Build fighting, democratic unions!

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Occupy the foreshore and seabed!

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Occupy all workplaces that close or sack workers!

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