Human Rights, Environment Obligations, and Ethical Investment: Aotearoa New Zealand is Going Down the Wrong Path
Dr Robert Howell
1 Introduction and Summary
A considerable portion of the world’s investments are unethical in that they have inadequate regard for the welfare of people and/or the planet. They invest in companies that abuse workers’ or other stakeholders rights. Their activities destroy our environment. Very few companies are fully fossil-free, or operate within ecological boundaries. One of the reasons for this is that the term ethical investing is defined by such unvalidated concepts as ESG, or responsible.
Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish the dual mandate?
Back in 1989 – near the end of the fourth Labour government – the inflation-busting Reserve Bank Act was passed. Labour has shifted well away from the Rogernomics of that decade, and in 2021 Grant Robertson added maximum sustainable employment to the bank’s mandate - with the support of coalition partner NZ First.
Our Reserve Bank joined a powerful grouping of central banks that have dual targets, including the US Federal Reserve, the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank.
Going into the 2023 election, National and Act committed to a return to the 1989 objective. Will they take us out of the mainstream and into a straitjacket rather than a life-jacket? And how does it square with their stated aim of getting people off the dole and back to work?
The next three years – the job ahead for Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori
The Fabians had a session on Nov 14th reflecting on the elections. Our panel of Simon Wilson, Senior Writer at NZ Herald, Bridie Witton, Stuff Press Gallery Reporter and Ollie Neas, freelance writer used the election results as a springboard to target some of the key issues for Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as they head into opposition.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Pae Ora health reforms with you.
Since I was sacked by the Health Minister I have taken time to reflect on the experience and to make a considered assessment of what I learned in the process. My intention tonight is to share that with you, making the assumption that we share common ground in wanting to have an effective, efficient, excellent and equitable public health service.
If anyone does not want that, I don’t really have anything useful to share with you.
The message from the two presentations was clear: first, urgent action on climate warming is required now. Avoidance of disastrous impacts is unlikely. Mitigation has past by as an option and only adaptation remains. Second Cheap energy will not be available in the future. This will lead to recessions and transition to an economy that requires much less energy.
The New Zealand economy and our ways of living will require transformation as we respond to both these eventualities. New Zealand is going to be hit by a double shot of reality and we will need to show some real leadership to develop the correct public policy and the political leadership to support it.
The Unleashing Auckland session on 16 July entailed three lively presentations followed by an even more lively discussion with the audience of well over a 100. A recording of the session is available here.
'We have stolen from our children, we have stolen from our grandchildren, it is time to put it right' was a core message of Shamubeel Eaqub.
Nicky Hager said that "Dirty Politics" is in effect a sequel to "The Hollow Men," about a new phenomenon that didn't exist at that time, namely the use of blogs - an idea derived from Republican politics whereby you could have negative publicity without accountability - with no backlash. You could also run things which the media wouldn't run.
He has had a very strong reaction around country because people had been feeling uneasy but not understanding what was going on - a series of constant attacks on people and attacks on parties. Other things the book is about - the same attacks were being used by corporate sources for corporate issues, with Cameron Slater taking money to attack people personally especially public health people. Also the machine that was being used to attack the National Party's opponents was also being used within the National Party, and people within the National party should be feeling the most angry about what is in the book.
Another idea out of US politics the two-track system. Parties know about negative campaigning, that it is very effective, not only for attacking opponents but also for stopping people voting. But it is dangerous, so the leader stays above it while the other people do the dirty work.
Re the effect of the book - the polls haven't shifted but he never expected quick result. But there has been a huge reaction - people feel that things have gone wrong and something has to be done about it.
So what should be done about it? Our system of government is far too secretive - our Official Information Act is now seriously out of date. We need to change the transparency laws. Improving the news media is the best defence a society can have - we should be building up the public broadcasting service in a huge way. The third thing that need to be fixed is the deligitimising of politics for people such as academics, scientists, all those who know about what is going on. If we don't have the maximum freedom of speech for such people then we are leaving politics to the Cameron Slater's of this world. Countries need intelligent motivated people and the great reservoir of those people is in the public service. What we have at the moment is that we don't have a public servant who doesn't think that they are doing something wrong if they get themselves involved in what is going on as a citizen.
Nicky said he feels he has written a book about ethics - a manual of all the things that we don't want, and all the things we can do to change things for the better.
You can listen to a podcast of Nicky's speech and the questions here; also Teresa Cowie's report on RadioNZ here, and the State Service Commissioner's response to issues raised in the meeting here.
In 1944 Rex Fairburn gave a lecture to the Fabian Society entitled 'THE LAND, OUR LIFE'. We have recently obtained a copy of this lecture and will return to the images and ideas Fairburn depicted then and their relevance to our narratives for today.
Denys Trussell and Christine Rose will set Fairburn's lecture in a modern context.
It is with deep appreciation for our literary heritage, the history of ideas and the stature of ARD Fairburn that we invite you to this event.