Little’s big dreams
Indian Weekender interviewed Labour leader Andrew Little where he talks about rebuilding the party, reviewing the policies and reaching out and connecting with all those who really matter.
PR: You are focusing on the Labour Party's image as the 'jobs party'. In this context, what are the party policies about highly-skilled immigrants who do not find adequate employment compared to their qualifications and work experience?
AL: Yeah that has been an ongoing issue for us. There are two aspects to it. One is that the sophisticated economic activities are changing our profile. We are moving up the value chain. Our economy is very much driven by commodity exports. But we have to change that. It is a long term project, but we have to do it to generate the standard of living we are used to and also job opportunities. It’s about the opportunities we have available.
Secondly, we are managing migration. We are not giving false hope. We are saying, ‘Meet these criteria to get these points and then you can come in. That way we have job opportunities for you.’
We are getting both aspects right. We are a country that is built on migration from all parts of the world. When we welcome people here, we generate opportunities for work, housing and a decent life.
PR: To address the issue of poverty, due to poor employment opportunities, the skilled migrants often end up with low-paid part-time jobs, leading them to what we call urban poverty. How do you plan to address this situation?
AL: Even with the labour market, there is low paid part-time jobs. There is more we could do in the labour area. Lifting incomes and wages across the economies is what we can do. If we move up the economic value chain, we are generating quite a wealth of profile of economic activities.
The short term fix is to raise the minimum wage and we proposed to do that last year – pushing it up by $2 per hour. It puts more money in circulation.
The real answer is to raise all wages up. We have the ground disparities now. The chief executives on the top end are getting higher and higher wages – in millions of dollars. The bottom 40 % is struggling to get any increase at all in real terms. We have to address that problem through investments, economic policies and labour market regulations. That gives people a better chance, better wages and living conditions. We address that with our investment and other economic policies and labour market regulations.
We are working on issues like workplace productivity. By encouraging that, the workforce can benefit from it. But most important is sharing the gains and that’s how people’s wages will go up.
PR: Experts have commented that when minimum wage goes up, the price of commodities will also go up as employees will struggle to pay their employees. How does that work out?
AL: We have to think that through more carefully. People who didn’t have enough to spend on things like going to the hairdressers and going to a café and having a coffee and a cake so to say, they get more money in their hands and start spending on those sorts of things.
When everybody gets a little of more money, they spend it and that way everybody else gets a little more business. When wages go up, prices do not necessarily have to go up – they don’t follow each other. People spending the money can boost the overall economy.
PR: What about child poverty?
AL: We know that two out of every five children are living below the poverty line in households that have a working parent. This takes us back to the wages issue. These parents struggle to make ends meet. Lifting minimum wage is one approach, but a short term one.
What we need to do is to change the way people get to share the gains of a growing economy. When you go for a job, you negotiate your employment agreement; when you join a union you have a fair chance of belonging to one and get the benefits of that; and you continue to keep working with the business community to lift productivity, to lift their earning, so that they have more to share.
The government plans to spend more money on child poverty. That will help things. It is not only about sharing but also about having the mechanisms for sharing. That’s why we were broken down last year – the mechanisms that help share the gains of an economy are not there and so the gains are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, while other people who are doing extra hours can’t get ahead because the link between working hard and getting the benefits are no longer there.
How to strike the balance? That’s why we need to work with the business community to find the balance. Some people who advocate the business model tend to have a black and white approach - increase business productivity to increase benefits. But they don’t consider the workforce that sustains the business. A more balanced view is to allow business to flourish but also look after the workforce and allow the institutions to do that. So that’s something the government can ensure through its industrial institutions – there is no substitute in my view to create a climate where the relationship between management and workforce is a good quality one where they are engaging regularly to make sure the benefits are shared. That’s a direction we prefer to be moving.
PR: Childcare costs are so high that quite often mothers are forced to stay at home and raise children. Unless they have high-paid jobs, they struggle to send their children to holiday programmes during school holidays. This problem aggravates when it comes to immigrant families who are not eligible for government subsidies. Is there a solution to this?
AL: Yeah I hadn’t thought about this before. I know that a lot of working families it is an issue. They have school age kids, they cannot take time off during school holidays and they have to take unpaid leave. They have to keep the kids occupied; the kids have to go to friend’s houses and things like that.
But it’s a thing we have to look more closely at to make sure the holiday programmes are easily accessible. And the costs are not a barrier to those families who do need to send their kids to holiday programmes. I think it’s certainly something we need to look at more closely. We do want to make sure that the school age kids and working parents are in a safe place.
PR: Labour Party is for housing affordability. But affordable housing often compromises on housing quality and that comes with health issues. What are your views on that?
AL: A number of things here. First of all the biggest issue with housing affordability is that when it comes to housing supplies it is more and it is not a rip-off. Labour has a policy – its Kiwi Build policy which is about building more affordable houses – 10,000 new houses a year over the next 10 years. If the government embarks on something that big, it can negotiate on materials and it can work with local authorities for opening up land and that sort of thing. We don’t need to compromise quality and healthy housing to do that.
Putting that aside, we also have a policy of Warrant of Fitness for rental houses. Thus, private landlords cannot just leave the tenant with dripping taps, cold and un-insulated. Our policy will be to have a housing WOF so that minimum standards of accommodation are met.
We need to make sure, especially for family with kids that the kids don’t go into unhealthy and unsafe housing facilities. So we want to know it is properly insulated, hot running water and the basics you require.
We have accommodation supplements, even if you are renting from private landlords. I think there is no reason why we can’t ensure through WOF programme that people get good quality affordable accommodation and the landlords also abide by the regulations. We don’t have to compromise on health and safety of housing in order to keep people in affordable housing.
PR: Coming back to the same question of urban poverty, in CBD area where there are more immigrants, there are high rises with tiny apartments, no proper ventilation and way too many people living in a small space although there are some regulations around that. How do you propose to address that?
AL: That’s a good point. You expect your local authorities to make sure that people are in proper housing. This is a recurring issue. A few years there were stories of people living in garages and even under the houses and mattresses and stuff kept under the house – tarpaulins on earth and mattresses on top which evidently show poverty. That highlights that we don’t have adequate housing, enough quantity of houses.
There are state houses that are being shut down. We know that the present government is going to sell off 8,000 state houses. The majority of them will end up in the hands of private developers and counter the problem of state housing for those who cannot afford their own home.
This is a serious issue. Good and affordable housing has been a core issue for Labour. We are going to make sure that people have safe and comfortable housing. If you don’t have that, you cannot work well and it sets you back in so many ways. You put your health at risk and also that of your children. This is crucial.
We don’t compromise with the RMA (Resource Management Act) changes that the government is suggesting. They are saying we are going to cut the costs and tackle housing shortage. They must make sure they don’t compromise on health safety and decent design because you know it’s not to serve our purpose to change RMA and build slums.
PR: In the urban slums, reports compare Auckland CBD to HongKong, where tall rises come up so close to each other in the name of more housing and lay people like us feel there is no planning going on. What do you have to say about that?
Phil Goff: One of the things I am looking at in Auckland is housing design. We have talked about more intensification of housing in the city as well as moving out, but when you have more intensification, it requires more focus on housing design. I have been to places internationally where housing layout come with park spaces for kids, including Auckland where they haven’t given any thought about leaving a breathing space. Somebody rightly compared it to filing cabinets where they keep the workers overnight to pull them out to work the next morning - a great expression. But the more housing we provide, the more we need to focus on good housing design where there are open spaces and a good quality of life.
There are these high rises in CBD area called Scene 1, Scene 2 and Scene 3; their nicknames are Obscene 1, Obscene 2 and Obscene 3.
As a Mt Roskill MP, I can give a local example of state housing in the Hamon Ave and Duke Street area, all the local people protested saying ‘Oh! We don’t want I’ .but nobody complains about it now. The houses are connected and there is space for garden too. Now these are some of the prettiest houses on the street. So we can have affordable housing without compromising on quality and design. The houses will stay for 150 years. You are not going to build cheap and nasty.
As Andrew said earlier, by using economies of scale and planning over a longer time, we can cut down the cost of housing.
PR: What are your views on FTA with India, in the context of India emerging as a world power and Obama’s visit to the country for the second time during the same term time?
AL: Labour has always been a supporter of free trade. What has been happening in India is commendable. Modi is poised to make a big impact and of course we want to be part of the growing economy. The relation between India and NZ has been strong for a while now. India is rapidly modernising, developing and generating its own wealth. For a country like ours it would be silly to not forge links and develop a trade relationship. It would get a mutual gain out of two. I am very supportive of it and very keen to see that grow.
PG: We have faced a roadblock for the past 2-3 years and would love to see it moving forward. Do something for India that makes it what China is for NZ – a major trading partner.
PR: Any key message for the Indian community?
AL: The Labour Party always had a very close link with the Indian community and certainly one of my personal priorities is to boost that. One of the disappointing outcomes of the elections last year was that we lost out on Indian representation in the Parliament. That’s a priority that when we get to 2017, we get that back. I am determined to make that happen and forge the links and build the relationship again.
PR: What is that one card that you foresee will ace you up against the National Party in 2017?
AL: I don’t know what I will be holding to my chest until 2017. But we know that after last year’s result we have a lot of work to do, which is about rebuilding the party, reviewing our policies. And getting through the arduous process of reaching out and connecting – so that’s the starting point. And the ace card, we will play that in 2017!
Indian Weekender interviewed Labour leader Andrew Little where he talks about rebuilding the party, reviewing the policies and reaching out and connecting with all those who really matter.
PR: You are focusing on the Labour Party's image as the 'jobs party'. In this context, what are the party...
Indian Weekender interviewed Labour leader Andrew Little where he talks about rebuilding the party, reviewing the policies and reaching out and connecting with all those who really matter.
PR: You are focusing on the Labour Party's image as the 'jobs party'. In this context, what are the party policies about highly-skilled immigrants who do not find adequate employment compared to their qualifications and work experience?
AL: Yeah that has been an ongoing issue for us. There are two aspects to it. One is that the sophisticated economic activities are changing our profile. We are moving up the value chain. Our economy is very much driven by commodity exports. But we have to change that. It is a long term project, but we have to do it to generate the standard of living we are used to and also job opportunities. It’s about the opportunities we have available.
Secondly, we are managing migration. We are not giving false hope. We are saying, ‘Meet these criteria to get these points and then you can come in. That way we have job opportunities for you.’
We are getting both aspects right. We are a country that is built on migration from all parts of the world. When we welcome people here, we generate opportunities for work, housing and a decent life.
PR: To address the issue of poverty, due to poor employment opportunities, the skilled migrants often end up with low-paid part-time jobs, leading them to what we call urban poverty. How do you plan to address this situation?
AL: Even with the labour market, there is low paid part-time jobs. There is more we could do in the labour area. Lifting incomes and wages across the economies is what we can do. If we move up the economic value chain, we are generating quite a wealth of profile of economic activities.
The short term fix is to raise the minimum wage and we proposed to do that last year – pushing it up by $2 per hour. It puts more money in circulation.
The real answer is to raise all wages up. We have the ground disparities now. The chief executives on the top end are getting higher and higher wages – in millions of dollars. The bottom 40 % is struggling to get any increase at all in real terms. We have to address that problem through investments, economic policies and labour market regulations. That gives people a better chance, better wages and living conditions. We address that with our investment and other economic policies and labour market regulations.
We are working on issues like workplace productivity. By encouraging that, the workforce can benefit from it. But most important is sharing the gains and that’s how people’s wages will go up.
PR: Experts have commented that when minimum wage goes up, the price of commodities will also go up as employees will struggle to pay their employees. How does that work out?
AL: We have to think that through more carefully. People who didn’t have enough to spend on things like going to the hairdressers and going to a café and having a coffee and a cake so to say, they get more money in their hands and start spending on those sorts of things.
When everybody gets a little of more money, they spend it and that way everybody else gets a little more business. When wages go up, prices do not necessarily have to go up – they don’t follow each other. People spending the money can boost the overall economy.
PR: What about child poverty?
AL: We know that two out of every five children are living below the poverty line in households that have a working parent. This takes us back to the wages issue. These parents struggle to make ends meet. Lifting minimum wage is one approach, but a short term one.
What we need to do is to change the way people get to share the gains of a growing economy. When you go for a job, you negotiate your employment agreement; when you join a union you have a fair chance of belonging to one and get the benefits of that; and you continue to keep working with the business community to lift productivity, to lift their earning, so that they have more to share.
The government plans to spend more money on child poverty. That will help things. It is not only about sharing but also about having the mechanisms for sharing. That’s why we were broken down last year – the mechanisms that help share the gains of an economy are not there and so the gains are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, while other people who are doing extra hours can’t get ahead because the link between working hard and getting the benefits are no longer there.
How to strike the balance? That’s why we need to work with the business community to find the balance. Some people who advocate the business model tend to have a black and white approach - increase business productivity to increase benefits. But they don’t consider the workforce that sustains the business. A more balanced view is to allow business to flourish but also look after the workforce and allow the institutions to do that. So that’s something the government can ensure through its industrial institutions – there is no substitute in my view to create a climate where the relationship between management and workforce is a good quality one where they are engaging regularly to make sure the benefits are shared. That’s a direction we prefer to be moving.
PR: Childcare costs are so high that quite often mothers are forced to stay at home and raise children. Unless they have high-paid jobs, they struggle to send their children to holiday programmes during school holidays. This problem aggravates when it comes to immigrant families who are not eligible for government subsidies. Is there a solution to this?
AL: Yeah I hadn’t thought about this before. I know that a lot of working families it is an issue. They have school age kids, they cannot take time off during school holidays and they have to take unpaid leave. They have to keep the kids occupied; the kids have to go to friend’s houses and things like that.
But it’s a thing we have to look more closely at to make sure the holiday programmes are easily accessible. And the costs are not a barrier to those families who do need to send their kids to holiday programmes. I think it’s certainly something we need to look at more closely. We do want to make sure that the school age kids and working parents are in a safe place.
PR: Labour Party is for housing affordability. But affordable housing often compromises on housing quality and that comes with health issues. What are your views on that?
AL: A number of things here. First of all the biggest issue with housing affordability is that when it comes to housing supplies it is more and it is not a rip-off. Labour has a policy – its Kiwi Build policy which is about building more affordable houses – 10,000 new houses a year over the next 10 years. If the government embarks on something that big, it can negotiate on materials and it can work with local authorities for opening up land and that sort of thing. We don’t need to compromise quality and healthy housing to do that.
Putting that aside, we also have a policy of Warrant of Fitness for rental houses. Thus, private landlords cannot just leave the tenant with dripping taps, cold and un-insulated. Our policy will be to have a housing WOF so that minimum standards of accommodation are met.
We need to make sure, especially for family with kids that the kids don’t go into unhealthy and unsafe housing facilities. So we want to know it is properly insulated, hot running water and the basics you require.
We have accommodation supplements, even if you are renting from private landlords. I think there is no reason why we can’t ensure through WOF programme that people get good quality affordable accommodation and the landlords also abide by the regulations. We don’t have to compromise on health and safety of housing in order to keep people in affordable housing.
PR: Coming back to the same question of urban poverty, in CBD area where there are more immigrants, there are high rises with tiny apartments, no proper ventilation and way too many people living in a small space although there are some regulations around that. How do you propose to address that?
AL: That’s a good point. You expect your local authorities to make sure that people are in proper housing. This is a recurring issue. A few years there were stories of people living in garages and even under the houses and mattresses and stuff kept under the house – tarpaulins on earth and mattresses on top which evidently show poverty. That highlights that we don’t have adequate housing, enough quantity of houses.
There are state houses that are being shut down. We know that the present government is going to sell off 8,000 state houses. The majority of them will end up in the hands of private developers and counter the problem of state housing for those who cannot afford their own home.
This is a serious issue. Good and affordable housing has been a core issue for Labour. We are going to make sure that people have safe and comfortable housing. If you don’t have that, you cannot work well and it sets you back in so many ways. You put your health at risk and also that of your children. This is crucial.
We don’t compromise with the RMA (Resource Management Act) changes that the government is suggesting. They are saying we are going to cut the costs and tackle housing shortage. They must make sure they don’t compromise on health safety and decent design because you know it’s not to serve our purpose to change RMA and build slums.
PR: In the urban slums, reports compare Auckland CBD to HongKong, where tall rises come up so close to each other in the name of more housing and lay people like us feel there is no planning going on. What do you have to say about that?
Phil Goff: One of the things I am looking at in Auckland is housing design. We have talked about more intensification of housing in the city as well as moving out, but when you have more intensification, it requires more focus on housing design. I have been to places internationally where housing layout come with park spaces for kids, including Auckland where they haven’t given any thought about leaving a breathing space. Somebody rightly compared it to filing cabinets where they keep the workers overnight to pull them out to work the next morning - a great expression. But the more housing we provide, the more we need to focus on good housing design where there are open spaces and a good quality of life.
There are these high rises in CBD area called Scene 1, Scene 2 and Scene 3; their nicknames are Obscene 1, Obscene 2 and Obscene 3.
As a Mt Roskill MP, I can give a local example of state housing in the Hamon Ave and Duke Street area, all the local people protested saying ‘Oh! We don’t want I’ .but nobody complains about it now. The houses are connected and there is space for garden too. Now these are some of the prettiest houses on the street. So we can have affordable housing without compromising on quality and design. The houses will stay for 150 years. You are not going to build cheap and nasty.
As Andrew said earlier, by using economies of scale and planning over a longer time, we can cut down the cost of housing.
PR: What are your views on FTA with India, in the context of India emerging as a world power and Obama’s visit to the country for the second time during the same term time?
AL: Labour has always been a supporter of free trade. What has been happening in India is commendable. Modi is poised to make a big impact and of course we want to be part of the growing economy. The relation between India and NZ has been strong for a while now. India is rapidly modernising, developing and generating its own wealth. For a country like ours it would be silly to not forge links and develop a trade relationship. It would get a mutual gain out of two. I am very supportive of it and very keen to see that grow.
PG: We have faced a roadblock for the past 2-3 years and would love to see it moving forward. Do something for India that makes it what China is for NZ – a major trading partner.
PR: Any key message for the Indian community?
AL: The Labour Party always had a very close link with the Indian community and certainly one of my personal priorities is to boost that. One of the disappointing outcomes of the elections last year was that we lost out on Indian representation in the Parliament. That’s a priority that when we get to 2017, we get that back. I am determined to make that happen and forge the links and build the relationship again.
PR: What is that one card that you foresee will ace you up against the National Party in 2017?
AL: I don’t know what I will be holding to my chest until 2017. But we know that after last year’s result we have a lot of work to do, which is about rebuilding the party, reviewing our policies. And getting through the arduous process of reaching out and connecting – so that’s the starting point. And the ace card, we will play that in 2017!
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