Letter No.28
9 November, 1995

14 October 1995

Local body elections. The Alliance takes a hammering in the Auckland polls.

A report produced by Te Puni Kokiri shows that Maori people are twice as likely to suffer from alcohol-related disabilities. Judge Mick Brown describes the situation as `a national crisis'.

NZ'ers are spending much more money overseas than they earn. The NZ balance of payments deficit has blown out to $3.3 billion. This is nearly $2 billion more than the previous year, and the worst figure since December 1986.

The Employers and Manufacturers Federations have agreed in principle to form a super-lobby group, tentatively called the Business Council.

Massey University students will pay 20% higher fees next year, to cover government funding cuts and extra costs.

15 October 1995

Jim Bolger welcomes the local body election results, declaring them to be a voter rejection of left-wing policies.

16 October 1995

A group of Psychiatric Nursing leaders say that national staff shortages in the mental health sector are undermining patient care, and cramping the controversial plans for transition from hospital to community care.

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch warns that Australia is creating an underclass of people who "don't have a hope, who don't try, and its totally destructive..."

17 October 1995

Hundreds of thousands of black men gather in a peaceful demonstration in Washington DC in front of the Washington monument. The `Million Man March' was a call for black men to come together to end the inner-city spiral of crime, drugs and unemployment. The US employment figures show black men with an unemployment rate of 12%, while jobless white men are at 5.4%.

Auckland University students face a 15% rise in tuition fees next year.

Jim Bolger allows Cabinet Minister Warren Cooper to hold both his tax-payer-funded jobs as Minister of Defence, and Mayor of Queenstown.

The Labour Party announces its re-packaged employment policies.

18 October 1995

Reserve Bank governor Don Brash hints that mortgage rates could fall sooner than expected. He admitted that the economy seemed to be slowing `a little more rapidly' than the bank had forecast.

Fire-fighters - often accused of moonlighting - criticise the government for allowing Warren cooper to hold down two jobs.

19 October 1995

The government announces its major package of jobs policies as its final response to the Employment Taskforce process. (see last special issue of the Jobs Letter)

Most banks drop their floating home mortgage rates to 10.5%, after wholesale interest rates also continued to fall.

20 October 1995

A top-level meeting is planned by national banking and farming leaders to discuss the plight of thousands of farmers throughout NZ who are in financial trouble. Federated Farmers says that a large percentage of farmers had made a trading loss last year, or just broken even, and the new season's outlook was just as grim. Farmers are reporting that banks are putting the pressure on to reduce overdrafts.

The number of building consents for new dwellings continued to decline in August, according to Statistics NZ. They are down 18% in number, and 13% in value, on the same month last year.

About a third of ECNZs 250 head office and regional marketing staff will lose their jobs, under restructuring measures which will prepare the company for its split into two state-owned enterprises.

The Institute of Economic Research's latest survey reports that business confidence has picked up in the three months to September.

21 October 1995

More than $1 billion is now owed under the student job scheme.

More than 500 Housing NZ tenants have taken the opportunity to buy their homes, in measures that will see the government receive at least $50 million from the sales.

A farming survey shows that 73% of all farms have some source of off-farm income.

22 October 1995

Government announces an end to the Waitangi Day celebrations at Waitangi in Northland, shifting the ceremonial venue to Wellington.

Transit NZ has about $500 million of roading projects on its books which it considers worthwhile, but is unable to fund. Transit NZ has asked government for permission to borrow money to fund capital projects. If the request was granted, the roading schedule could be brought forward by about two years.

23 October 1995

Labour Day. Celebrated since 1890, this holiday was originally a commemoration of the eight-hour working day, a right that NZ workers were among the first in the world to claim.

The United Nations celebrates its 50th birthday with the world's biggest ever summit of world leaders.

Labour releases a discussion paper, [[[Rethinking Work which advocates shorter working hours to reduce unemployment, increase productivity, and to help families to get time together.

24 October 1995

Shortage of cash is forcing the building and motor industry sector ITOs to consider abandoning industry training altogether.

25 October 1995

Forestry Minister John Falloon reports that the number of people employed in the forestry sector has increased by 8.2%, or 3000 people, in the year to February 1995.

26 October 1995

The Aid organisation CORSO is backing calls for Maori sovereignty with a series of meetings around the country to mark the 160th anniversary of the 1835 northern Maori Declaration of Independence.

The NZ Future's Trust has appointed Malcolm Menzies as its new head. Menzies is a Research, Science and Technology Ministry policy analyst, and he takes over from the trust's retiring chairman, James Duncan.

27 October 1995

The Business Roundtable estimates that NZ's water system is worth about $6 billion and says that large gains were possible from industry reforms such as corporatisation.

28 October 1995

In a rare interview, the Auckland motoring magnate Colin Giltrap says he sees little sign of an economic slowdown, and reports a definite upturn in demand for cars: "We are getting orders right across the board from Hyundais to Porsches. It is almost back to the boom times ..."

Waikato University vice-chancellor Brian Gould calls for surplus government funding to be used to restore tertiary education funding to a fair level.

29 October 1995

Japan's jobless figures have reached a record high level for the fourth consecutive month.

Former Prime Minister Sir Wallace Rowling dies in Motueka, aged 67 yrs.

30 October 1995

Enterprise Auckland, the Auckland City Council's economic unit, predicts that the CHOGM Commonwealth Summit will add nearly $20 million to the NZ economy.

Two university lecturers report that student tuition fees could be cut in half next year if universities borrowed for capital development instead of paying cash.

Conservative housewives from 11 countries end a three-day world congress in Argentina, calling for more social welfare to let women opt out of the workforce. Women at the conference say that feminists spend too much time fighting men and look down on wives who opt not to work.

31 October 1995

The Lampen Workchoice Day which introduces students to the workplace is appealing for more companies to get involved with this initiative.

Employers Federation CEO Steve Marshall says that some employers were hiring contract labour or offering employees overtime rather than hiring new staff, because they fear legal action if staff are dismissed.

Six business organisations the Auckland and Wellington Regional Chambers of Commerce, the Building Owners and Managers Assoc, Federated Farmers, the Business Roundtable, the Manufacturer's Federation have joined forces to fight the idea that local authorities should be allowed to set rates and levies on the basis of a ratepayer's ability to pay, rather than user-pays.

2 November 1995

Telecom announces a $338 million half-year profit, and says it will scrap some service charges, and change the criteria for their cheap phones-for-the-poor service (which wasn't getting many takers).

Wi Tetau Huata, husband of Donna Awatere Huata has been discharged without conviction after being found guilty of assaulting Sue Bradford outside an ACT party rally in auckland. Huata has apologised and agreed to pay $300 to the Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre.

Canterbury University vice chancellor Prof Albert Brownlie calls for the abolition of student fees.

3 November 1995

New Zealand is the 20th most prosperous country in the world, according to the OECD.

The Alliance believes that Telecom should use some of its profits to abolish domestic phone line rentals.

Dr Sylvia Chapman, a co-founder of the aid agency CORSO, has died in Sussex aged in her late 90s.

4 November 1995

Labour's new industrial relations policy includes entitlements for all workers to take six weeks parental leave. Labour will also provide for a minimum youth wage, set at 80% of the adult minimum.

The government reports a higher-than-forecast surplus in the first quarter of its financial year, with $1.02 billion rather than the predicted $788 million.

6 November 1995

Sue Bradford holds a training day in Auckland for core activists protesting at the CHOGM conference.