New Zealand Labour-led government prepares attacks on working class
By
John Braddock
10 November 2017
New Zealand’s Labour-NZ First-Green Party government has taken office this month amid heightening anxiety within the ruling elite over growing anti-capitalist sentiment and sympathy for socialist ideas among sections of the population.
Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and NZ First leader Winston Peters, an anti-immigrant populist, both declared after the election that capitalism had “failed” and new measures were needed to revive its “human face.” In fact, the Labour-led coalition is a capitalist government that will accelerate the assault on living standards at home, and prepare for imperialist wars abroad.
Moves are already under way to strengthen the powers of the state and role of the unions to police the working class and suppress emerging resistance by the working class to the deepening social austerity measures.
In her first major appearance as prime minister-designate, Ardern told a NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU) conference on October 25 that while she would introduce a series of “union friendly” policies, such as restoration of tea breaks and raising the minimum wage, “working together with business” would be “key” to her government’s operations.
Ardern praised Air NZ, declaring that “when business and workers join together, we can achieve great things.” When the company was losing money and looking to cut jobs, she said, the “high engagement cooperation between workers and employers,” saved the company and “the future of the business was transformed.”
Ardern failed to mention the destruction of 180 jobs in 2013 when Air NZ’s Auckland engineering base was moth-balled, and the closure of seven regional flight networks…