by Sue Bradford
Yesterday I hosted the launch at Parliament of a petition signed by 10,500 New Zealanders calling on the Government to protect jobs in the NZ banking sector.
The Green Party, the bank workers’ union Finsec – and the signatories to the petition - believe that in return for the massive support the NZ taxpayer is giving the banks through guarantee schemes, the banking sector should be expected to make a commitment to keeping jobs in this country.
A UMR poll of 750 people released yesterday also found that 79% of respondents thought that banks should be required to maintain staff here as a quid pro quo for Government backing.
Finsec has been trying to get the Minister of Finance Hon Bill English to meet with them this week about the results of the petition and the survey, but have had no luck so far.
Later on yesterday I asked some questions in the House in an attempt to clarify the Government’s position.
It was clear from Mr English’s replies that the Government has no intention of imposing any kind of requirement on banks in regards to keeping job levels up because of the threat he sees to the economy of any destabilization of bank security.
I reckon he has got it wrong. In a number of countries overseas at the moment Governments are placing all sorts of requirements on banks, financial institutions and companies who are the beneficiaries of taxpayer support.
Why should taxpayers here back banks who are quite relaxed about ‘offshoring’ hundreds of New Zealand jobs to Bangalore, for example, at a time when unemployment is rising daily and the Government itself says keeping people in work should be a top priority?
I think Mr English should at least have the courtesy to sit down with Finsec and look at any reasonable measures that could be taken by Government to require at least minimum levels of job protection in return for the guaranteeing of deposits and wholesale funding of banks and finance companies.
After all, economic stability isn’t just about maintaining confidence in the banking sector, it’s also about keeping as many people as possible in work and out of the dole queue.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Health & Wellbeing by Sue Bradford on Wed, May 6th, 2009
Tags: banks, Bill English, employment, financial guarantee, Finsec, jobs
More posts by Sue Bradford | more about Sue Bradford
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
We’re not really backing banks though, are we.
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As I understand it, we are MAKING money from the bank guarantees, not spending it. OK, if a bank collapsed (not likely as “sub-prime” mortgages were never a feature of our risk-averse banks’ product portfolios) we might have to support a default’ However, as all the big ones are branches of Aussie companies that would have to collapse too (can just see Rudders letting that happen) the potential is less than 0.009%.
As part of a Party that claims it’s not their job to cost their policies, I suggest you leave the economics to experts and carry on helping us make New Zealand 100% Pure. Labour are there to look after the workers, National are there to look after employers, The Maori’s are there to look after the tangata whenua, ACT are there to look after the rich-pricks, your job is to look after that aspect of Gaia that is our islands; if you all focus on that there will be balance and purpose to multi-party politics, if not, why do we need to fund you all and your ‘hosting’ costs?
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oooooooooooooooooo
I’m being mediated! Wow.
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Crikey, old sport!
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The sad reality is that the banks don’t care about people at all, they care about profit. They don’t give a stuff about their staff, or customers – they want profit. And they will do and say whatever they need to, to maximise their profits. Just look at the insulting Kiwibank ads that use WW2 restistance imagery to ‘get more business’. I’m not sure why we expect the aussie banks to be better.
The govt guarantee scheme just ensured that the banks made more or at least maintained their profit. It was/is a joke.
Finsec and others need to keep the pressure on, because eventually (hopefully) the banks will see that outsourcing or dumping people will lead to less profit… and when that happens, watch them turn 180 degrees, with big fake smiles on their faces.
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Why should banks keep staff they don’t need? Why should anyone?
There are plenty of tasks in our society that need doing. Let the labour flow to where it is needed.
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BP – this isn’t about jobs that banks don’t need – that’s your usual strawman.
It’s about banks holding the taxpayer for ransom, threatening economic collapse, while sending needed jobs offshore. Pretty obnoxious behaviour if you ask me.
English as much as admitted in the House yesterday that he was held to ransom by the banks and was powerless. I was disappointed that Sue didn’t drive that point home, but I guess you only get so many supplementary questions…
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Frog
what did I say to get censored out?
I really don’t understand.
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The banks are the dog and the people of this and other countries are the tail – not the other way round.
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>>needed jobs offshore.
The bank doesn’t need them. Well, not at the price the locals charge.
The banks aren’t holding the taxpayer to ransom. Governments are doing it. In any case, our banking system is sound and diversified thanks to Douglas.
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Strings, perhaps the filter is just being a prick
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What’s your job, Frog? If it’s to run this blog, then why don’t you know why the filter is behaving the way it does?
A WordPress install, running Askimet, doesn’t censor to this level. Are there other filters running? You can find them under Plugins.
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What utter rubbish Sue, the banks are there to do one thing only, return a profit for their investors.
I want lower rates for mortgages, credit cards and business banking, the jobs are of no concern to me at all.
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far left
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marxist
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far
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left
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Ok, you’ve got the term “far l@ft” banned by a filter somewhere.
Have you got Comment Filter running? WP-Nosh@t?
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big bros said: What utter rubbish Sue, the banks are there to do one thing only, return a profit for their investors.
So do you think the Government should pull the plug on its guarantees to the banks then?
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“I want lower rates for mortgages, credit cards and business banking, the jobs are of no concern to me at all.”
Ditto….its the service I care about….not the internal issues of the bank…or any business.
The State should not be backing any business with taxpayers money…thats obvious.Let them sink or swim…..or contract out overseas if thats what they think is best.
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Toad Of course the government shouldn’t guarantee deposits.
This post highlights why governments should stay out of business. The moment the government injects money into the market it also starts to influence control as well.
For the biggest example of this go and look at Obama and what he has been doing with Crysler and GM.
A business needs to survive because it produces a quality product or service. If it fails at that task then it needs to go bankrupt. The government can ONLY ever de-stabilize the market.
The second thing a government does by acting as a backstop is that it removes proper risk management. The bank guarantee does this but a much better example is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the US. These were so called private companies but everyone knew that if they got in trouble the US government would bail them out. This ment they had no RISK they could lend money to anyone and it didn’t matter if they were paid back.
Another example of the unintended consquence of government action has to be FDIC in the US. The FDIC was created by one of the worst US presidents FDR and it is a government guarantee for bank deposits. The unintended consquence of FDIC is that individual depositors don’t need to care where they deposit their money as long as the bank says FDIC everything is fine. This removes the responsibility from the individual and places it onto the government. The banker also doesn’t need to care too much about his own credibility so what if his bank fails FDIC will take it over and he can get a new job at some other bank.
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Thank you Frog
For sure, if there were a prick it wasn’t you!
Funny though eh
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Unfortunately, bullshit deflectors are necessary….contain yourself Bluey….you want a friend? – get a dog.
“The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly
conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow
men. In youth he may have learned the command, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but
the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his
highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor’s heart – and this,
unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to
right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.” Clarence Darrow, Resist
Not Evil
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No BP – this blog isn’t my job. That’s why I come and go and sometimes things sit in moderation for a while – right behind yours was a comment from daddyO calling you names, from yesterday. I did edit that one, it was a personal attack.
“far left” was in the filter plugin, along with a few others that I have removed. We’re down to a few swear words now. I had to chase up an administrator password – frog isn’t an admin, I’m just a lowly contributor.
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Of course the Govt should pull the plug on the profit inducing guarantees. It is pointless trying a sob story with these banks you need to talk their language and that language is profit. Show how keeping kiwis in jobs with them will give them more profit and they will be salivating like pavlov’s dogs
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Frogblog filters are set to reject BluePeterisms . Sadly, some still slither through
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Frog! Cheer up! There’s nothing lowly about being a contributor.
The world is ours for the taking!
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Can you?
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Nah, bring ‘em on
Just like my good mate, Greenfly. He loves me, really.
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Sigh! When are people going to get it….
…successful Big Businesses are focused purely and entirely on one thing. Short term profit.
So _any_ statement “XXX business expected to do their bit on YYY” is fundamental cock-eyed unless you can add “which will give them a better Return On Investment in the short to medium term compared to other opportunities.”
It’s a bit like saying gravity will suspend it’s downward pull in favour of such moral considerations as not hurting falling children on the playground. Very moral and all… but not going to happen, gravity doesn’t work that way.
So no, I don’t expect Banks to do their bit on jobs. Not going to happen. (Unless the staff turnover costs start biting them hard).
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The banking system and in particular if one was to be exact, which is probably redundant and pointless, their license to supply the natural credit function, has stripped amongst other things the social fabric bear. And they will continue to do what they damm well like ( which includes introducing restrictions on the very essence of life itself, the carbon cycle unfortunately) while society increasingly becomes an even more miserable rat race under the burden, because people have ‘democracy’ which doesn’t involve balancing the public account in the price system cycle-wats that???????????
The economic stability that can come from keeping full employment is at the cost of war. Either war or the slave labour cost of it is so low in relation to the returns that the money power has in its complete dominance over an economy that it simply liquidises the cost itself.
And it’s grating that even healthy food has become a province of the better off in monetary terms now, that being the only choice as it seems, i preferred it when systemic ignorance levelled that particular playing field.
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Not really StephenR, but i think an angle that might put pressure on is if there is a groundswell of public opposition that threatens to reduce their NZ profit. I spose they might get concerned about that, even if it is just a relative drop in the bucket in terms of their overall profit. Apart from that not sure how to get them interested. It seems that the game is much bigger than a few hundred or thousand jobs in NZ.
I don’t think moaning to the banks at a governance level will work – that’s for sure.
I’m sure ANZ Group are uncomforatable having elders protesting outside their branches due to the shonky advice they were given.
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turnip28 said: Of course the government shouldn’t guarantee deposits.
I knew you would say that Turnip – it is completely consistent with your ideology.
I’m not so sure about big bro though – he’s been remarkably quiet since i asked him what he thinks re the guarantees.
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In the dim past, I was a bank teller.
Come to think of it, I was still a teenager then, too.
The bank tellers that I meet these days are constrained by shift rosters, software that often complicates their jobs, rather than helping (especially when the system for the whole national network of branches goes down), and the knowledge that much of the work happens online or via the call-centre; making branch tellers into an expensive, and unstable, window-dressing exercise for banks, who are pandering to customers like myself who don’t like internet banking.
(Can I help it if I don’t trust the software, having known some of the programmers?)
Service industry jobs, in most first-world countries, are performed by immigrants or out-sourced to third-world countries, not just because none of the pampered, well-educated citizens want to do a job that pays that lowly, but also as a side outcome of the investment/dividend paradigm.
With everything else that the USA has got wrong in financial theory over the past decades, why are we still even considering taking a lead from them on this kind of issue?
Surely jobs in our own country, feeding consumption back into the local economy, are more important than the dividend paid to a share-holder in London, Toronto or Washington?
Go Finsec, and good on you, Sue, for trying to keep the b*stards honest.
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Interesting to see that westpac has recorded a profit of 202M for the march half-year. What contribution did the guarantee make to that? It seems it is an economic tsunami for some, but certainly not the banks. Of course that is a 15% lower profit than the same time last year so get ready for more job loses because if we don’t keep the profit up, well we won’t get richer – will we!
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But the government isn’t really propping up the banks. It doesn’t have the funds, and in any case, almost all of them are Australian.
The banks know it. We know it. It’s merely a very cheap statement designed to stop a run on banks.
Workin’ just fine….
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Hmm. Perhaps if we reclassify the money spent on banks as part of the aid budget, we could not only claim to be spending 0.7% of GDP on Aid, but could also be claiming to have created much needed jobs in what is still a largely third world country, and such successful measures could be used to bolster the Governments strategy of focusing aid on economic growth.
I’ll just give Sir Humphrey a call …
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Just like my good mate, Greenfly. He loves me, really.
Shhhh BluePeter, I’m currently undergoing metamorphosis!
I’m expecting to come out some kind of synthesis between you and Jarbury. I think I’ll be a Bluebottle.
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Perhaps you’ll sell your organic lettuces to the highest bidder?
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Aptly, I was thinking much the same as don.
Exporting jobs is a form of aid to other countries, or atleast Sachs argues such. We should use aid to help create industries in the developing countries that we need here but the labour costs would be prohibitive, we then cut aid and the both countries benefit from the aid provision, NZ companies operating out of those factories and contributing a protion of the funds to construct them; a PPP that actually works. :p .
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Marvelous, Sir Humphrey
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Pretty much. I don’t know the specifics in New Zealand, but it is a legal requirement in the US and a lot of other countries. I’m guessing it is here too.
And anyway, if a teachers behavior should be held to no standard higher that ‘legality’, as some argued on this blog not so very long ago, why should a company’s behavior be held to any higher standard?
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I agree that the government should be putting constraints on banks as a condition of issuing them a guarantee. Giving jobs to people in other countries is not automatically a bad thing. I personally believe in buying locally made, but only when there are environmental or social justice grounds to do so. Otherwise, we are just being nationalistic bigots.
Perhaps a better approach would be to impose a minimum wage on all bank employees / contractors (whether here or overseas) as a condition of their right to trade, or to have their ‘securities’ guaranteed, in New Zealand. This would be a good thing from a social justice perspective – it would mean that banks wouldn’t be able to ‘shop around’ for the country where they can legally exploit workers the most.
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I couldn’t agree more, we all need to do our part, no matter whether you are a company, a bank or a citizen. If we all don’t pull together then we can’t expect to see results
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Strings mislead us with… “However, as all the big ones are branches of Aussie companies that would have to collapse too (can just see Rudders letting that happen) the potential is less than 0.009%.”
Read the fine print Strings! I recently went shopping for another basket to put some of my hard earn eggs in so I read the banks declarations…. All the fine print about the ownership of NZ banks by Aussie banks is about guaranteeing if the NZ child bank fails, it doesn’t take the Aussie parent with it! ie. As soon as it looks like an NZ subsidary is going to go unprofitable, watch out for them draining assets from and shifting liability to the child bank and then pulling the plug.
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