NiuZila: Land of full fat milk and welfare money

The recession is over!  Yeah right…

One of the responsibilities of a Niu Sila/New Zealand Government being voted in by the public, is for that Government to look at the bigger picture - to make policies, plan for the future, implement changes - things the average Sione and Sina have little power to do themselves.  Yet this Government, with a Palemia/Prime Minister who was a former market speculator, has had a hands off approach to the economy.  That right wing mantra: the market will correct itself.

Little comfort for the nearly 3000 people who lined up last week, to apply for only 150 jobs at a new supermarket opening in Manukau, Aukilani Saute/South Auckland.  It’s an amazing illustration of how people are desperate, and not just a few, but heaps of people!  The majority were Maori and Pacific Islanders.  But there were also Indians, Asians, Palagi/Pakeha/European, people from across Aukilani/Auckland.

What’s the Government’s response?  Do nothing.  Well that’s not totally true.  They appointed a Tax Working Group made up of rich Palagi males to recommend how to make the tax system more efficient.  Their recommendations?  Tax cuts for the rich, increase the goods and services tax (GST) which will affect the poor the most. 

Again I’m being unfair on my representations on the Government.  The Tax Working Group also suggested a capital gains tax which would be like most western nations, where land and property owners would be taxed for the appreciation in value of their land/property.  Of course that would be too bold a step for the Government to make in Niu Sila/New Zealand, a country obsessed with owning houses as their nest egg.  There’s no incentive to put savings into industries that create innovation, further capital, and more jobs.

So when the public see the Government reject the extreme recommendations of the Tax Working Group (such as the capital gains tax), it would make a GST rise and tax cuts for the rich look more palatable for the public to digest.

Meanwhile, 3000 people await to hear the outcome of their job interviews/applications.  For these people it’s about putting bread on the table, paying the bills to keep a roof over their heads, and getting from week to week.  While those entrusted to look at the bigger picture seem to also be looking out for the rich only.

UPDATE:  The Government announced it will raise the minimum wage by… wait for it… it’s a whopper… it will be raised by “25 CENTS!”  That’s right folks.  Meanwhile the struggling Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, will be spending $26 million on propaganda to charm the education sector of her unpopular National Standards policy! Hmmm….

On Saturday night, my family settled down in the living room to watch a movie.  Nestled in our couches with our ie afu / blankets, munching away on potato chips, it was promising to be an enjoyable family night.  However our movie was cut short when we heard the sound of glass smashing from the road.  Our house is no stranger to car crashes as our road is often used as a short cut through the Aukilani Saute / South Auckland suburbs and careless (often drunk) drivers would mis-judge the corner and the gradient slope of our hilly road, ending up in any of the front yards of the houses on our street, or attached to a fence, letter box, tree or even a power-pole.

As usual we and our neighbours came out to investigate the sound.  But the smashing didn’t sound like a car crash.  Instead we witnessed the end of a brief skirmish between two groups of young Polynesian youths, throwing beer bottles at each other.  The youths must’ve been so drunk that they didn’t realise they woke up the neighbourhood (or they didn’t care).  But my neighbour and I started shouting at the boys to stop what they were doing.  At that point they all sprinted off down the road.  Littered across our road were at least 15 beer bottles all smashed into hundreds of pieces.

The neighbours and my family got out our brooms and salu and began to clean up the mess.  Even though those boys should be the ones cleaning up, it was going to be our cars that drive along that road, it is our kids that walk along the footpaths to school and back, it is us who mow the lawn verges, it is our neighbourhood that we live in every day.

As I was sweeping up the glass pieces into the dust pan, I began to think “why?”

A newspaper this morning reports benefit figures show that, once again, Maori and Pacific people are worst affected.  Aukilani / Auckland’s Maori unemployment benefit rate rose 1.5 per cent in the past year to 3.4 per cent, and the rate for Pacific people rose a full percentage point to 2.1 per cent.  In contrast, the rate for Asians and others rose only half a percentage point to 1.2 per cent and the European rate rose by only 0.4 percentage points to just 0.7 per cent.  Unemployment benefit rates were higher in Aukilani Saute South Auckland - Manukau City (1.8 per cent) and Papakura City (3.2 per cent) than in North, West or Central Aukilani.

Today the Government announced it would change more labour laws which Unions believe points to a trend of re-introducing the three week annual leave for workers (instead of the four weeks guaranteed under current law).  This is on top of recent changes made by this new Government, such as the 30-day trial period (ie an employer of a small company can fire any employee in their first 30 days of work, and not have to give a reason), introducing tax-cuts that favour the rich (who will most likely save it rather than spending it to provide a stimulus to the economy - all the while the poor struggle on to make ends meet), not offering to support workers in upskilling through their 9-day fortnight programme, but willing to pour millions into private companies. 

Recently Samoans / Pacific Islanders have been making the news headlines for all the wrong reasons: robberies, assault, escape from police custody etc.  In these strained economic times, more pressure is heaped on those already struggling at the bottom.  Some feeling the only way out of their circumstances is a life of crime and/or drunkness.

It is our families and communities who are feeling the effects of this economic crisis.  And it will be our families and communities having to sweep up the messed up lives and pick up their broken pieces.

The other day, my lil cousin said to me he wanted to be a rapper… he wanted to be in Dawn Raid.

In the 1990’s the Niu Sila / New Zealandhip hop scene was introduced to Samoan rappers, Savage, Brother D, Mareko, and others who made up the label Dawn Raid.  To many young brown youth (and to the general New Zealand palagi public), the words Dawn Raid is associated with this urban label, yet the origins of the label’s name come from a less glamorous era in Niu Sila’s history.  Dawn Raids was a time where white New Zealand / Palagis truly showed it’s racist core, dissolving it’s supposed egalitarian veneer, and exposing it’s arrogant views over the brown population.

During the 1940s and 1950s Niu Sila was one of the richest nations on earth.  Rising out of the two World Wars virtually unscathed, Niu Sila’s primary sector produced most of the Post-War Western worlds dairy, meat and wool products.  Niu Sila was very much part of the British Empire, and where Mother England went, so would Niu Sila.  Niu Sila was known as the British outpost of the Victorian Empire.  Imperial cartoons are full of this close connection between the isles off the coast of the European continent, and the isles of similar size in the South Pacific off the coast of continental Australia.  If Britain was symbolised by a confident woman known as Britannia, then it was no surprise that attached not too far from Britannia was her daughter Zealandia, a young shy girl.  Niu Sila depended on Mother England as it’s core market for it’s primary industry.

With such wealth, Niu Sila experienced an urban shift.  With urbanisation Niu Sila was in desperate need of people to build roads, build the new houses, work the burgeoning frozen meat industry, man the ports, clean the hospitals, build the sky scrapers etc.  And where did Niu Sila find such a ready source of cheap labourers?  The Pacific Islands.

During the 1960s and 1970s there was a huge influx of Pacific Island migrants, ready and willing to work for the New Zealand economy.  While a large proportion entered Niu Sila illegally, the authorities weren’t too fussed, because they needed the workers pronto!  Tokelau, Niue and the Cook Islands were under Niu Sila’s mandate (colonies), which afforded the people automatic Niu Sila citizenship.  Samoa had a similar relationship until it gained independence in 1962.  Pacific nations fears of over-population never became a problem as thousands of families moved to the urban cities of Niu Sila.

However in the middle of the 1970s things took a turn for the worst.  Britannia decided to cut ties with her relative on the other side of the world, and join her European cousins in the European Community (precursor for the European Union).  Niu Sila had lost her main buyer.  The economy started to feel the impact.  Unemployment began to rise.  And the brown folk who Niu Sila desperately needed became the scapegoat for the economic climate.  Polynesians were blamed for unemployment, for rising crime, for the deterioration of public services etc.

The National Party used cartoons depicting Polynesians as the cause of all these ills in it’s election campaign… and won! 

It was in this back drop that the State employed what is known as Dawn Raid tactics.  At the crack of dawn Police would bust down doors of any house suspected of containing overstaying Polynesians, round up the people, and put the illegal immigrants on the first plane back to the islands.  Sure Niu Sila has the right to enforce it’s laws, but after decades of needing the brown folk it was all to convenient to use them as the scapegoats when things got bad.  Even worse most migrants came from Australia and Britain, yet only Polynesian immigrants were targets of Dawn Raids by police.

This racist targeting was further illustrated when police would stop any brown skinned person in public, and demand to see their papers, and arrested if they failed to show documentation.  Sound like apartheid South Africa?  The stupidity of this policy was shown when Maori were rounded up for being suspected of overstaying… ummm Maori were here for over 1000 years!  Even employers began to accuse the brown workforce for petty crimes, which would ultimately lead to deportation by the authorities. 

If you were brown, you were a suspect.  Never mind Maori are natives, never mind Niueans, Tokelauans and Cook Islanders were New Zealand citizens.  Never mind that hundreds of Island families had been living here for decades and fully naturalised tax paying citizens.  Never mind that palagi immigrants were seen as desired is utterly racist.  Never mind that Niu Sila protested about South Africas apartheid, yet practiced it’s own version at home.

But out of all this racism, was born the Polynesian Panthers.  This group of young brown students and some palagi liberals started campaigns to educate Pacific Islanders of their rights if approached by the authorities, they started non-violent protests, they began the first home-work centres, they lobbied politicians.  It’s no surprise that many of today’s Pacific leaders were members of the Polynesian Panthers.

(There is also the famous Samoan woman Falemai Lesa, who challenged the Niu Sila government that because she was born in Western Samoa when it was under Niu Sila control and therefore was a New Zealand citizen, went all the way to the Privy Council - the highest Court in Niu Sila at the time - and won!  Our very own Rosa Parks.)

The Polynesian Panthers supported Maori in their hikoi / march for their rights, from the top of Niu Sila to Wellington / Ueligitone, they were amongst the ranks protesting against apartheid South Africa’s white only rugby tour of Niu Sila, they marched alongside the green movement against the US demand to let nuclear submarines into Niu Sila waters.

If there was ever a group or event to be inspired by in that era, it wouldn’t be Dawn Raid, it would be a group that created a social movement and today’s leaders… the Polynesian Panthers.

I suspect that similar to here in New Zealand/Niu Sila, most Samoans in other countries are found in low-skilled/unskilled, retail, hospitality, factory floor, building industry, etc occupations.  As relatively new migrants to these rich Western democracies, these merely play as stepping stones in the story of the Samoan diaspora.  There is an emerging brown middle class here in New Zealand, but generally, our people still occupy the lower rungs on the socio-economic ladder.

So when I read Business New Zealand chief executive, Phil O’Reilly’s comment on Monday that “right now, of all times, you don’t want to make those on the margins of the workforce more difficult to hire” in opposition of a proposal to lift the minimum wage, I knew exactly who he was referring to by “margins of the workforce”.

By the “margins” he meant Maori and Pacific Islanders, the brown work force.  By the “margins” he meant the young and vulnerable.  By the “margins” he meant women.

Yet it seems a bit “rich” (pardon the pun) that O’Reilly and many of the employer members of his Business New Zealand association will benefit from the Government’s planned tax cuts in April.  As the global economic crisis looms, it’s the poor, those on the bottom rungs, that will bear the brunt of its impact.  Those with the least job security, the worst working hours, the lowest paying jobs, the majority being the brown workforce.

Yet again, the business community want the people who are already the most vulnerable in society, to be the shock absorbers of this economic crisis.