Prime Minister, Unions ARE Workers
Chris Luxon, Erica Stanford and Simeon Brown continue to gaslight Kiwi workers, in their latest instalment of divide and conquer
Only an idiot would have sold Heathrow at Air NZ
First a clarification -
The other day I wrote: Luxon is a dud leader - his tenure at Air NZ gave plenty of clues and one person wrote to me to tell me that the very damaging Air NZ Heathrow slot decision was made after he left (2020). So I wrote a short correction.
However, after looking into this, it appears Luxon was the one who made the call in 2019.
And Air NZ can’t get that slot back now, and it’s hurting the airline.
Luxon sold the lucrative Heathrow slot for $27 million in 2019, stopping the 40 year London service, but only 4 years earlier, another airline purchased the Heathrow slot for $75 million. Today Air NZ can’t get it back.
Classic short termism, boosting financial numbers on his watch, while selling the company’s future and prosperity up the river.
And then jumping as quickly as he could to politics with the National Party.
No wonder Ian Powell once wrote that Luxon and Health NZ Board Chair Lester Levy are like two peas from the same pod:
“The pair share similar communication styles and see things through a similar lens.
To put it another way, they were made for each other.”…..
“Lester Levy came in with an embellished assertion that he had inherited a financial mess and was the right person to fix it.
In each of the four DHBs, the chief executives resigned…. Morale also plummeted …. Ironically, following his appointment as their chairs, the three Auckland DHBs went from financial surpluses to deficits.”
Anyway that’s a re-clarification that my original article was on point. Even without this, it would still not be good.
Luxon is a professional lightweight. He should never have been handpicked nor be where he is today.
Erica Stanford and the current Prime Minister attack hard working Kiwis
Look, what I would say to you is Luxon is not only an anti-accomplished leader, but he’s also a master gaslighter, telling media that it is unions that are hurting hard working Kiwis, and sidestepping the fact that unions ARE the workers: the teachers, doctors, nurses, cancer specialists, dentists, firefighters etc that we all rely on and care for.
There are no unions outside of people who have chosen to come together to speak and vote.
And that our essential workers fight not only for safe staffing, but the ability to retain our best.
Luxon told media that New Zealand just doesn’t have the money, but this is the same Prime Minister and government who handed back $500 million to big technology, $300 million to global tobacco friendlies, gave themselves ~11% pay rises (Luxon gets $50,000 more alone) and gave friendly Board Directors up to 80% more pay too.
Teachers are being offered pay cuts.
Nurses are being refused safe staffing levels.
Doctors are told to cut their pay after a year of frontline freezes and trying to hold up a public health system this government is actively defunding (while it prioritises private investors), and finding themselves having to make beds and clean sinks because of budget cuts.
And all the while, this government shows an abject disrespect and ignorance of how to treat people and how to negotiate in good faith with unions i.e. with essential Kiwi workers.
Last year the NZ Council of Trade Unions said that this is the most anti-worker government in modern NZ history.
They’re not wrong.
And Erica Stanford, increasingly confident co-splaying as the next National Party leader, is going to step right into those same gaslighting shoes with apparent ease.
