File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-01.214, message 60


Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:51:59 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: Re: M-I: New Zealand Reforms


Bill Cochrane reminds us just how bold our REAL ENEMY has become.

'Imagine my surprise when over my breakfast gin and cornflakes I read the
following page one headline in the Herald (our national daily and voice of
the establishment), "Less for Welfare, more on Defence"  Apparently in a
speach to the Auckland branch of the American Chamber of Commerce treasurer
winston peters served notice that significant changes in the social welfare
system were immanent.ie workfare & benefit cuts.'

[I hope New Zealanders keep such utterances to the fore - many predict
peters will try to ensure re-election by moving over to Clarke's Labour
Party when he has shot his bolt with Bolger - I honestly don't have enough
faith in Clarke to think this an impossible scenario - it simply must not
be allowed to happen.  Every disgusting word this opportunist utters should
be shouted from the rooftops when peters comes courting.

Also, try a soluble roughage with your morning drop, Bill, it'll make for a
smoother breakfast.]

Bill goes on:

'Oh joy it would appear my uncharacteristically optimistic prognosis was wrong.
no doubt I will be soliciting food parcels from the list in the near
future, Australians of course need not contribute as the wonders of NZ
restructuring are no doubt to be visited on you.'

[I shouldn't expect sustenance from any other source if I were you.  At
least we'll have hectares of unutilised land and tonnes of produce going to
waste because we can't sell it on a 'level playing field' we've made for
ourselves, but upon which nobody else seems to be playing.  Oh, and don't
accept any shell fish from well-meaning Australian comrades.  The
infrastructure here has declined so rapidly that our sewage-nourished
oysters now come with gratis Hepatitis A.

Good reasons for being socialist become more apparent every day - which,
mixed blessing though it is, does more for the cause than the nonsense that
has lately captured this list (Comrade Adolfo has just slipped me under the
sheets with messrs Malecki, Rodwell and Bedggood, for chrissakes!  At least
I now realise there are worse bedmates to be had - I can but hope my new
partners are as broadminded.)


Good luck, Bill.  I can but hope your Centre will still have something to
study a decade from now.

Rob]




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