The price of justice

Last year, the regime rammed through the Equal Pay Amendment Act under urgency, gutting pay equity laws, dumping all claims, and stealing $13 billion from New Zealand women. Labour wants to reverse that. So naturally, they're getting the usual bullshit question from the regime and its stooges: "how will you pay for it?"

The short answer to this is "who the fuck cares?" It is fundamentally immoral to pay people less because of their gender. The state has been committed to eliminating this form of discrimination for over fifty years. It is appalling that it has taken so long to do so. It is even more appalling to see people quibbling about the fucking cost. Do they think we should pay women less? This is justice; we pay whatever it costs. It's that simple.

And the substantive answer is that we could afford it up until last year. What changed then is the government's priorities: they decided to spend all the state's money on landlord tax cuts and stupid fucking roads, and that these things were somehow more important than justice. That was an appallingly immoral decision, which shows what disgusting sexist pieces of shit the present regime are. But a different government can change those priorities. It can not be sexist, and put justice ahead of greed and stupidity. So, it can "pay for it" by simply reversing National's landlord tax giveaway. Or maybe just by cancelling some stupid roads.

Either way, the people asking these questions should be asked one in return: do they think women should be paid less? If so, they're ghouls and weirdos who have no place in the modern world and can be simply ignored. If not, then why are they even asking? Either way, maybe they should be thinking about the values underlying the policy, rather than the details.

Luxon just became a poster boy for taxing the rich

Whenever our politicians are caught with their hand in the till, they loudly proclaim that their theft from the public was "within the rules". The problem is that they are the ones writing the rules, and there's a certain suspicion that they write them to suit themselves. And so their their legalistic defences simply add to the stench of self-interested corruption from our political class.

That's bad enough when it comes to rorting perks and getting paid to live in your own house. But Prime Minister Chris Luxon has taxen it to a new level, apparently scamming $70,000 from a tax break he gave himself:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon narrowly avoided paying what might have amounted to a large tax bill on the sale of his Wellington apartment thanks to changes brought in by the Government.

Luxon sold his Wellington apartment and moved into the Prime Minister’s official residence, Premier House.

[...]

Because Luxon bought and sold the apartment within five years of purchase and he bought the apartment after the introduction of the five-year test, he would have been required to pay tax under that test at a rate of 39% - equating to a maximum tax of $70,200.

However, on coming into office, Luxon’s Government scrapped both of Labour’s extensions of the bright-line test, shifting it back to two years as of July 1, 2024. That means Luxon avoided being caught by the five-year test by just over two months and saved himself $70,200. If he had sold the apartment in February, when he declared he would move into Premier House, he would likely have been required to pay the tax.

Obviously, Luxon didn't change the rules solely so he could profit from it. But he did nakedly profit from the rule-change he wrote. And that's... unseemly. A "bad look". A bit stinky.

But I guess that's just who our political class are now: not normal people, but people with huge portfolios of hoarded houses, and the rapacious, grasping, self-interested attitudes to match. According to his Gospel of Prosperity, Luxon saw an opportunity and took it, and that's why he's "wealthy and sorted" and the rest of us are just struggling peasants. And because we were fools enough to give him power, we deserve to be exploited in this way. But while that may sound great in the weirdo fundamentalist circles Luxon moves in, to the rest of us, it just looks like a greedy arsehole abusing his power to rip off the public. And it makes some form of wealth tax a necessity. Because its no longer just a fair way of giving the state the resources it needs to pay for the services we need - its about making sure rich arseholes like Luxon don't get to rort us while laughing at us.

Equality comes to Greece

The Greek Parliament has voted for marriage equality:

Greece has become the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage.

Same-sex couples will now also be legally allowed to adopt children after Thursday's 176-76 vote in parliament.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the new law would "boldly abolish a serious inequality".

Good. But there are still EU members who refuse to recognise marriage equality, or have constitutions specifically enshrining bigotry. The ECHR needs to step in and deal with them.

Wage rises, not tax cuts

NewsHub has a poll on the cost-of-living crisis, which has an interesting finding: the vast majority of kiwis prefer wage rises to tax cuts:

When asked whether income has kept up with the cost of living, 54.8 percent of people surveyed said no and according to 58.6 percent of people, groceries were the main concern.

To help with costs, 61.2 percent suggested increasing wages and just 15.9 percent wanted tax cuts.

Which makes perfect sense. Tax cuts primarily benefit the rich, delivering very little to real people (notoriously, a block of cheese a week). And they do that at the cost of gutting the public services and public infrastructure we all depend on. Even a moderate wage rise delivers far more money to those on median incomes. And if you have a union, and get the sort of wage rise collective bargaining can deliver, its even better. And it all comes directly out of rich people, without gutting public services.

So how can the government deliver this? Constantly increasing the minimum wage to ratchet up everything else is one way. Enabling unions to do their job and fight for better wages and conditions is another. And Labour's new Fair Pay Agreements are a third. If you work in a supermarket, or hospitality, or as a bus driver, cleaner, or security guard, then things are likely to get better (and hopefully other industries are lining up as well).

Note that all of these things are under threat from ACT-National: if they get elected, they'll stop increasing the minimum wage, suppress unions, and abolish fair pay agreements, effectively cancelling wage rises for hundreds of thousands of kiwis. Instead, they'll let your local roads and schools and hospitals rot, so they can give money to their rich donors as tax cuts. That gives the rich a big return on their investment, but it fucks over everyone else. But that is basicly what National is all about, isn't it?

Freedom comes to Barbados

Last year, Barbados they threw out the colonial monarchy. And now, they've legalised gay sex:

A top court in Barbados has struck down colonial-era laws that criminalize gay sex, becoming the third nation in the conservative Caribbean region to do so this year.

The ruling issued Monday by the Barbados high court is a pivotal moment for activists and non-profit organizations who have long fought against such laws on the eastern Caribbean island, including one that demands up to a life sentence for gay men found guilty of having sex.

“It’s gone from a certain ripple effect to a tidal wave in the Caribbean, which is what everyone involved set out to achieve,” said Téa Braun, chief executive of the London-based Human Dignity Trust, a human rights organization.

There's now only 6 countries in the Americas which still criminalise gay sex, and only 67 in the world. This sadly includes far too many in our own region - Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Niue all criminalise gay sex, though like Barbados none really enforce it. But as in Barbados, the mere existence of such a law is discriminatory and stigmatises LGBTQ people. It would be nice if these countries followed through on their promises of legalisation.

Labour grovels to the bigots

In the wake of the March 15 terror attack, the inquiry recommended tougher hate-speech laws. And after dragging their feet on it for a full year, the government has basicly said "fuck that":

The Government has drastically watered down its hate speech reforms, Justice Minister Kiri Allan said on Saturday.

Proposed last year in response to the March 15 terror attack and the Royal Commission report that followed, the reforms were due to expand protections to women, religious groups and rainbow and disabled communities, among others. As it stands, only hate speech on the basis of race, skin colour or national origin is prohibited.

The reforms were also going to increase the maximum sentence for hate speech and raise the legal threshold for what might be considered hate speech so that only a narrower band of violent and threatening expression would be banned. The law currently forbids speech that is intended to "incite ill-will" against a group while the Government's proposals would have raised that bar to inciting "hatred".

However, Allan said, the scope of the reforms is now severely curtailed. Only religion will be added to the list of protected grounds and no further changes will be made to hate speech law.

On the plus side, Muslims will at least get some protection. On the minus side, groups who have been routinely targeted by both hate speech and the violence it incites will be left out. And all because Labour would rather grovel to bigots and throw their own supporters under the bus than stand up for its principles.

Fuck Labour. They're as useless as a proverbial useless thing. Grovelling to the rich, grovelling to farmers, grovelling to bigots and misogynists. If they won't do what they say they will, and will back away from their principles at the first sign that someone might disagree with them, what is the fucking point of them?

Labour actually achieves something!

Well, it finally happened: two years into its term, the Labour government finally achieved something:

The Fair Pay Agreements Bill has passed its third reading in Parliament, with the support of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

The bill provides a framework for collective bargaining across occupations - like cleaners, supermarket workers and security guards - rather than just between unions and employers.

Negotiations with employers could be initiated by 1000 employees or 10 percent of the workers under the proposed coverage.

Once that happens, a union representing workers in that industry would be tasked with taking on negotiations and employers would be represented by a business interest group.

As ought to be obvious from the vicious reaction of National and ACT against it, this is good legislation, which will make a serious difference to the lives of ordinary working people. Or at least, it will if it sticks around. But Labour has made such a mess of this term that instead it looks like it will be immediately repealed by the hard-right ACT/National government which is currently on-track to replace them. Given a perfect opportunity to enact change - the first single majority government in 30 years - they instead squandered it entrenching the status quo. And by doing so, they gave up any chance of establishing a new, popular normal, any chance of bringing people with them. Not to mention any chance of giving people something to vote for, rather than just something to vote against. And they have no-one to blame for this but themselves.

What a waste.

Still, at least we got this out of it.

112-8

The Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act passed its third reading tonight, with only 8 MPs voting against it. The Act prohibits the torture of LGBTQ children by bigots and quacks, protecting their right to be who they are. It will make Aotearoa a safer place for these kids to grow up in, and its passage is something we should all welcome.

So who were the eight bigots? Simon Bridges, Simeon Brown, Melissa Lee, Todd McClay, Simon O'Connor, Chris Penk, Michael Woodhouse and Shane Reti. None of them bothered to speak to explain their hate - too ashamed, I guess. The thing they all have in common is that they are all from National, which has generally been on the wrong side of history on every vote about gay rights. The good news is that there were only 8 of them this time (of 33 National MPs). Which I guess goes to show how far the dial has shifted, and how indefensible this sort of bigotry is becoming. But if National wants to shift that dial further, and move in the right direction for once, it could make it clear that these MPs have no future in the party, and de-select them at the next election.

A victory for trans rights

For the past three years terfs have been frothing over the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill, which would allow people to change the gender on their birth certificates without having to go to court or provide invasive medical information. Its a simple measure which protects the dignity of trans people. And it just passed its third reading on a unanimous voice vote, with no opposition.

...which I guess showed us how much political support there is for terfs here: basicly none. No political party wanted to vote against this, because they're just not that vile (alternatively, no-one wanted to be recorded as voting against it, because they know they'd be carrying that stain forever). Its also I think a sign of how far our society has moved since the hatefests over civil unions and marriage equality. Yes, the terfs were vocal on the interwebs. But its not like they could organise a giant hate-march up Lambton Quay over it. Mostly because most of those vocal internet voices are in fact bots amplifying a tiny clique of obsessive arseholes in the UK. Locally, there's very little support for their hate, and only NZ First was sufficiently indecent to want to pander to it. And with them gone, we can finally have a better society.

Equality comes to Chile

Chile's legislature has voted overwhelmingly for equal marriage:

Lawmakers in Chile on Tuesday legalized same-sex marriage, a landmark victory for gay rights activists that underscores how profoundly the country’s politics and society have shifted in the past decade.

By overwhelming majorities in both chambers, lawmakers put the unions of same-sex couples on par with others, making Chile the 31st nation to allow gay marriage and taking a significant step toward consolidating it as the norm in Latin America.

Good. And on the latter front, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights rule in 2018 that countries must recognise same-sex marriage; hopefully the remaining countries will hurry up and implement it.

Progress in Europe

There's a lot of votes in Europe today, and the headline after the German election is that the Swiss have voted overwhelmingly for marriage equality in a referendum:

Swiss voters have decided by a clear margin to allow same-sex couples to marry, in a referendum that brings the Alpine nation into line with many others in western Europe.

Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of voters in favour and won a majority in all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons.

Switzerland’s parliament and the governing federal council supported the “Marriage for All” measure, and pre-referendum polls showed solid backing. Switzerland has authorised same-sex civil partnerships since 2007.

Its good news, which officially brings Switzerland into the civilised world while further marginalising the bigot-states. Marriages should start in a couple of months.

And in other good news, Berlin voted to expropriate its large corporate landlords. Its a non-binding referendum, but the acid is really going to be on the politicians to obey. And San Marino finally legalised abortion.

Equality under the law?

Twelve days ago New Zealand was shocked to learn that a rich Auckland couple had abused "essential worker" paperwork to break lockdown and fly down to Wanaka for a holiday. But despite multiple criminal offences apparently being committed, they still haven't been charged:

At least 20 people have been charged with breaching lockdown rules in the past 12 days but the couple who fled Auckland for a trip to Wānaka are yet to face any enforcement action.

Auckland couple William Willis and Hannah Rawnsley allegedly used essential worker exemptions to travel to a holiday home on September 9.

They have since apologised for their actions, but almost two weeks on, despite indicating the pair would be charged with breaching the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act, police say their investigations are continuing and no charges have been laid.

The article has a long list of examples of people who have been quickly and rapidly charged for identical behaviour. But this couple haven't. Why not? Pretty obviously, because mummy is a judge, and apparently that merits a higher standard of treatment from police. And even if this is about careful checking to ensure a case withstands scrutiny, that immediately implies that the cases of mere peasants don't merit such care (and that therefore they may be facing inappropriate charges).

The overall impression is like that of the Helen Clark motorcade incident, where police bent over backwards to avoid charging anyone, because a Very Important Person was involved. But the law should apply to everyone, even if they're the Prime Minister or their mother is a judge. And if it doesn't, then the state has no grounds to demand that the rest of us obey it.

Submit!

The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. Submissions can be made via the online form on the parliament website, and are due by 8 September 2021.

This bill is important. It would stop bigoted parents and quacks from torturing children in a perverse effort to change who they are. There's a clear public interest in protecting people from such practices, so they are free to be who they are. I urge everyone who cares about LGBTQ rights to submit on this bill.

On the wrong side of history, like always

Parliament debated the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill this afternoon, and voted to send it to select committee by a margin of 87 to 33. The only party opposed? National.

This is a bill aimed at ending the torture of LGBTQ kids and giving them the freedom to be who they are. But under the guise of "needing more debate" (which they then explicitly voted against), National opposed that. Which is I guess what happens when you get wiped out at the polls and only your religious bigot rump survives. But its another example of how the party and its members consistently stand on the wrong side of history (and then salves their conscience by pretending to apologise for it in their valedictory speeches). And for a party which claims to be the main opposition party, its absolutely appalling.

The government's hate speech proposals

Today the government released its proposals to criminalise hate speech. There's a full discussion document here, but the key change is to replace the current clause in the Human Rights Act with a wider one:

The law would change so that a person who intentionally incites, stirs up, maintains or normalises hatred against any specific group of people based on a characteristic listed in Proposal One, would break the law if they did so by being threatening, abusive or insulting, including by inciting violence

When I first read this in a news story this morning, I was worried by the presence of the word "insulting", because merely insulting people shouldn't be a criminal offence. But the first clause makes all the difference: this isn't about preventing offence, but about preventing hatred and social exclusion. As I noted when discussing the Human Rights Commission's initial report on the issue, laws against hate speech are about protecting people's right to participate in society and be themselves. Public insults and expressions of hatred can interfere with people's use of public space. If you can't go about your everyday business without being insulted and harassed, then that seems to be the sort of interference the law should protect against.

Exactly which characteristics will be protected is still up in the air, but it is going to be wider than the current grounds of "colour, race, or ethnic or national origins", and I'd expect it to at least include religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Religion is likely to be the most controversial of these: we don't want to re-establish blasphemous libel by the back door, or give a licence to religious fanatics to silence others (as they have attempted in the past). But I don't think it will be too difficult to craft appropriate legislation if the clear focus on the problem being inciting hatred and discrimination and preventing participation is maintained.

Also in the proposal: explicitly including gender expression and gender identity as prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act. The government already considers these to be covered by the ban on discrimination on the basis of sex, but given the rise in anti-trans bigotry, has now come round to the position that this needs to be stated explicitly. The protection is something we should all welcome, and should make it crystal clear that this bigotry is unacceptable.

A victory for women

Last night, the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020 was passed unanimously by Parliament. The Act updates the 1972 Equal Pay Act to create a bargaining framework for equal pay claims and hopefully avoid the need to take them to court. It doesn't go far enough - there's no pay transparency clause, for example - but should still be a massive improvement on the status quo,and can do down as something this government has actually achieved (I guess Winston didn't feel he could be that regressive and reactionary). And since it comes into force the day after it is signed, hopefully we'll see some quick improvement in the gender-pay gap.

The Greens' opening bid is transformational change

Over the weekend the Greens made their first election policy announcement, and promised transformational change: a more progressive tax system, with new rates applying to incomes of $100,000 and $150,000; a new wealth tax on net wealth over $1 million; and a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate poverty. Its bold, its progressive, it would make us a better, more equal society. So naturally, National is against it. As for Labour, the party that promised change at the last election, they don't want to talk about it - they're simply missing in action. Which is I guess what you'd expect from a bunch of people who own that many investment properties in Auckland.

A lot of people are quibbling the details of the wealth tax: is the $1 million threshold to low? Is the effective exemption of family homes by individualisation too complex? Will the rich find ways of giving themselves paper debt or paper partners to evade it? But these are implementation details. You can shift around thresholds and exemptions and this and that, but the core principle - that the rich should be paying tax on their hoarded wealth - is something we should all support (though really, its probably easier to implement the property part of it via a land tax, since its basicly impossible to evade). And it puts Labour in an unpleasant position: for all their left-wing talk, they're essentially a status quo party, who now oppose the more equal society they once stood for, or at least, oppose doing anything serious to get us there. But if they oppose this, they're essentially taking on their own base - and especially the young activists who provide the bulk of their electoral workforce. So hopefully, they'll be forced to respond. And while their response will no doubt be an insipid, watered-down half-measure (remember the "bright-line test"?), by accepting the principle, it will open the door to something better in future.

Equality comes to Costa Rica

Costa Rica has become the first country in Central America to recognise same-sex marriage:

The first same-sex weddings have taken place in Costa Rica, the first Central American country to equalise its marriage legislation.

A lesbian couple became the first to tie the knot in a ceremony that took place just after the new law came into effect at midnight.

The wedding was shown on national TV.

President Carlos Alvarado said the law change meant Costa Rica now recognised the rights lesbian and gay people had always deserved.

As in other countries, this change was made by the courts: in 2018 Costa Rica's Supreme Court implemented a ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and declared provisions prohibiting same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. They gave the legislature 18 months to fix the law. They didn't, so the ban was abolished.

So much for raising the retirement age

For the past twenty years, the right has plotted to raise the retirement age, supposedly because preventing old people from starving to death is "unsustainable". Of course, it would also let them deliver an enormous tax cut to their cronies, which tells us that its financial sustainability is simply a matter of priorities, and that theirs are focused solely on the rich rather than the 99% of New Zealanders who need this. But the good news is that the Retirement Commissioner - who had previously supported such a raise, on precisely those specious grounds - has changed their mind. And the reasons why are illuminating:

In the commission's latest three-yearly Review of Retirement Income Policies, [acting retirement commissioner Peter] Cordtz said new Treasury projections showed that NZ Super in its current form was sustainable for at least the next 30 years – and raising the age could do more harm than good.

[...]

He said retirees of the future would approach the end of their working lives in a worse financial state than current retirees because of declining rates of home ownership, and changes in employment and income patterns.

Rising levels of debt and the changing nature of work made it harder for people to save, he said. "All these things show that tomorrow's retirees are going to be in much worse shape and will require more help."

The review noted a downward trend in home ownership.

The proportion of people aged over 65 who own a home without a mortgage has dropped from 83 per cent in the mid-1990s to 72 per cent.

And pretty obviously, this is only going to get worse as time goes on. So, the Boomer's property bubble - really a massive wealth transfer from young to old - has basicly meant we have to keep superannuation as it is. In fact, it'll probably mean having to raise payments, since current levels assume that people own their own home and so aren't paying rent or a mortgage every week.

In the meantime, "sustainable for 30 years" means that there is plenty of time to raise taxes to pay for it. And hopefully over that time they can do something to fix the housing crisis as well.

Northern Ireland joins the civilised world

Same-sex marriage has finally become legal in Northern Ireland. But not through any decision of the Northern Irish Executive or Assembly, which has only just reformed after a three year walkout by the DUP; instead, Westminster made that decision for them. I've talked before about the constitutional impropriety of this, but now that Northern Ireland has a government again, it also has to face the reality that there was always a majority in the Assembly for this, and the only thing stopping it was the DUP's veto. And if they try and repeal it, they are going to lose.

Meanwhile, gay couples in Northern Ireland will be freer to live their lives, and legal bigotry eroded, and that's something worth celebrating. And in a month, there'll be the usual photos of happy couples. We should all be happy with them.