Miscellany
Forward and Leftward
Text (PDF 216KB) and slides (PDF 645KB)
From an address by Bill Rosenberg to the CAFCA AGM on 7 September 2009 to mark his leaving Christchurch.
News media ownership in New Zealand, by Bill Rosenberg (PDF 1.1MB)
Who owns who in the Aotearoa/New Zealand news media, last updated 13 September 2008.
The Journalism, Media and Democracy Research Centre (JMAD) at the AUT School of Communications is now working on updating this report and maintaining it as part of their larger Media Mapping Project. Some of the work in progress can be seen in:
- the New Zealand Media Ownership 2011 report published by JMAD which Merja Myllylahti, who is managing the project, presented to the JMAD 2011 Conference: Political Economy of Communication
- It has been published in the Pacific Journalism Review . Another article in that issue, on media freedom, may also be of interest.
- a TV debate between Merja and Brent Impey on MediaWatch7 on 29 September 2011 (see Chapter 2 of that episode)
- An item on Radio New Zealand’s MediaWatch on 2 October 2011.
Keep Lyttelton Port Public (separate web site)
A coalition is campaigning against the proposal by the Christchurch City Council to sell a 49.9% share and control of the Port of Lyttelton to Hutchison Port Holdings of Hong Kong.
Suharto and associates investments in New Zealand, by Bill Rosenberg (PDF 125KB)
A list of Indonesian investors CAFCA is aware of who are related to the Suharto regime or family, with a summary of the state of their holdings and our knowledge of the investments. It was compiled as a result of a request made by the Indonesian Attorney General, Mr Marzuki Darusman, to Aziz Choudry during his visit to Indonesia, in August 2000.
Scroogecoach Stagecoach extends its empire, by Bill Rosenberg (DOC 45KB)
The aggressive UK passenger transport company, Stagecoach, is active in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This documents its background and its activities as at February 1999.
The problem is not savings but investment, by Bill Rosenberg (DOC 62KB)
Written in July 1998 following the 1997 financial crisis in Asia and South America. The economic crisis is your fault and mine, the government tells us. It’s all because I and you haven’t saved enough. This is economic nonsense which is nothing more than a game of passing the blame. There are in fact two economic crises affecting Aotearoa/New Zealand at present. One was completely foreseeable: the current account deficit. It has been on its way for a long time. The other is the Asian crisis, long – and accurately – predicted by critics of open slather free markets, but a highly embarrassing bolt from the blue for the government, the police of the international “free market” such as the IMF and World Trade Organisation, and their advisers.
If objectively considered, both should lead to fundamental reversals in current government economic policy and in the policy enforced by those international institutions. They won’t, because “economic rationalism” is not rational. For Aotearoa/New Zealand, the solution to neither crisis is for us to save more. It is to control our economic relationships with the rest of the world, and in particular, control foreign investment.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa,
P.O. Box 2258
Christchurch 8140.