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all Matt's columns
Matt McCarten: No Amnesty for Israel in new report on Gaza
Sun 5 Jul 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday Jul 05 2009
Two days after last Christmas Israeli armed forces invaded the Gaza Strip killing 1400 Palestinians, almost all civilians including 300 children. During that three-week campaign three Israeli citizens died. Israel barred international media, allowing Israeli spokespeople carte blanche to spin their propaganda without the nuisance of independent verification.
Israeli troops returned home leaving the Gaza in ruins and Amnesty International has mounted an independent investigation into the claims made that both sides had committed war crimes. That report came out this week.
Matt McCarten: Rising tide of jobless needs real action now
Sun 28 Jun 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday Jun 28 2009
It's been another bad week for the Government. John Key must be feeling some pressure from Phil Goff on rising joblessness.
Hearing abstract employment figures normally goes over the heads of most of us. But there's something scary about learning that 1000 workers each week are now having to sign up for the dole.
Until the change in government we were used to hearing that employment was at record highs. Employers were even screaming for more migrant labour to fill the gaps. It seems amazing that in just a few months our unemployment numbers have reached the highest level this century, with no immediate end in sight.
Matt McCarten: National's failure was on several Key fronts
Sun 21 Jun 09
Herald on Sunday
21st June 2009
After every campaign a party does an analysis of their performance. I suspect the National Party would rather not, given its humiliation in Mt Albert. So I'll do it for them.
They didn't take the by-election seriously
Matt McCarten: Candidate boo-boo biggest fear for campaign staff
Sun 14 Jun 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday Jun 14, 2009
Earlier this week I was driving past a pile of campaign billboards that some hoon had mown down with a car. It was raining and watching the poor bugger trying to repair his candidate's signage brought back similar memories of campaigns I'd run.
The Mt Albert campaign is the first by-election since Robert Muldoon died in 1991 when I wasn't the campaign manager for a candidate or at least playing a senior role. Back-room managers have a hell of a job. Few come back for another by-election. I've done five, which must be a record. Someone asked if I missed running campaigns. I assured them I didn't. Working early morning until late without a day off for two months takes its toll.
Matt McCarten: Hats off to Greens for seamless transfer of power
Sun 7 Jun 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday Jun 07, 2009
I've always liked Green Party MP Sue Bradford.
The first time we met was during a dispute with an employer which had locked out its workers. Bradford, with her husband Bill, joined an occupation of the worksite I'd organised. The scenario being: the boss locked the workers out of their jobs, so the workers locked the boss out of his offices. The cops were called but with dozens of low-paid elderly women workers passively blocking the doorways, they gave up.
The cause was just. Agreement was reached where the workers got their jobs back and the boss got his office back. Bradford was a prominent leader in the unemployment cause and a master tactician at confronting injustice by direct action. I was grateful for her support.
Matt McCarten: Battle of two old generals
Sun 31 May 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday May 31, 2009
I had a sense a deja vu when reading snippet responses to the Budget from old geezers Roger Douglas and Jim Anderton. Both predictably attacked the Budget from different political sides. Anderton called it a "broken promise Budget" and an "economic disaster". Douglas predictably scolded National's Budget as a "tyranny of the status quo" and "more borrow in hope". It seems surreal these two backbenchers in the 1980s led the ideological fight inside the Lange government. Both strode the stage as titans leading opposing forces that ultimately transformed our nation.
Matt McCarten: Power bill larceny a taste of things to come
Sun 24 May 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday May 24, 2009
The hot topic on Friday was surely the couple who emptied millions from their bank account after some Westpac bank employee mistakenly allowed a $10 million overdraft. The couple were reportedly in serious financial trouble and the swindle was spur of the moment. No doubt many people will be cheering them on.
But this crime is dwarfed by another reported the same day. That swindle was more than 400 times greater than the opportunistic heist.
Matt McCarten: Lee's gaffe shows wider defect in the system
Sun 17 May 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday May 17, 2009
The MT Albert by-election is over. National's greatly lauded new face, Melissa Lee, has been a disaster. Lee's foot-in-mouth justifications over a motorway being built through the Mt Albert electorate clearly show she is a political lightweight. Before she was a list MP she was a presenter. Clearly she misses her autocue cards.
It is mind-boggling anyone would claim the benefit of having a motorway through your neighbourhood would reduce crime because crims from South Auckland (read: "brown people") would be going too fast in their cars to pull over to burgle a few houses.
Matt McCarten: Misinformation muddies waters around flight attendant dispute
Sun 10 May 09
Herald on Sunday
Sunday May 10, 2009
I met Rob Fyfe, the chief executive of Air New Zealand, last Sunday. Despite what some of my political adversaries may think, I find senior managers of corporations to be seemingly decent individuals.
Anyone who gets to lead a public company or similar organisation tends to have worked their way up the career ladder, and been judged by their peers to have the personal attributes and professional skills to lead them.
The less-than-savoury corporate characters I have run up against seem to infest themselves further down the food chain.
So it puzzles me why Fyfe and his lieutenants have declared war on lower-paid cabin crew. The head of the union representing these workers, Andrew Little of the EPMU, is as smart and as decent as Fyfe.
Matt McCarten: Blocking Twyford nomination exposes Labour character flaw
Sun 3 May 09
Herald on Sunday
3rd May, 2009
I received a number of calls after last week's column, in which I criticised Phil Goff for being spooked by right-wing bloggers and consequently kneecapping Phil Twyford's nomination for the upcoming Mt Albert byelection.
A couple of the blogging offenders contacted me to be congratulated after Twyford - who they accept would have romped in as the next MP - was run over by his own leader.
These bloggers ran an internet campaign stating, accurately, that if Twyford, a current list MP, won the seat, Judith Tizard would automatically go back into Parliament as his list replacement. They believed she was so unpopular it would put Labour on the defensive. Of course, it did more than that. Labour was so freaked Goff stopped Twyford's nomination.
