Paekakariki’s Jan Logie looks certain to become Green List MP in new Parliament
By Alan Tristram
The Greens’ record highs in the opinion polls mean Kapiti’s Jan Logie will almost certainly be an MP in the new Parliament.
Ms Logie, who lives in Paekakariki, is standing for the Mana seat. But she is also 9th in the Green Party list, which on present indications means she will easily pass ‘Go’.
In the latest NZ Herald Digipoll, the Green are on 12.6%, which would give them 15 seats.
Earlier polls put them around 10% and about 12 seats in the new Parliament. Under such scenarios, Mr Logie would definitely become a List MP.
Anti-Expressway stance
The news is highly significant for the Kapiti Coast as it means another leftwing, anti-Expressway MP in Parliament to oppose the strongly pro-motorway stance of local National MP’s.
When she first became a candidate Ms Logie said: “The important issues in Mana are core Green Party issues. Fairness and opportunity, better transport and clean water are key concerns.”
Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman said: “Jan has a long history of working for social change and knows Parliament. Her skills and experience make her a real alternative to Labour or National.”
Works for sustainable cities
A long-time Wellingtonian,but now living on the Coast, Ms Logie is Development Manager at the NZ Centre for Sustainable Cities, working with councils and university researchers to create sustainable and inclusive cities.
She previously served as Executive Director of the national YWCA and worked for the Hutt Valley Youth Health Service as well as Wellington’s Women’s Refuge.
She also worked overseas, helping children in Mumbai’s slums. She left there to become Sue Bradford’s executive assistant during the “anti-smacking” legislation debate.
She has a solid background advocating for women, children and youth.
I’m still waiting on a reply from Jan to my question about Kiwi Saver (KS), I will try and sum it all up again.
First Russell Norman is using a 25 year old KS as his example of how much they will save on KS fees over the life of the KS account, something like $60,000 . Which sounds great, if not for the 25 year old at least for political spin.
So it seems Russell (and therefore the Green Party) are very happy promoting KS. The voted it in after all.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) (which the government says is a reputable organisation) is stating in its 2011 Energy Outlook – that at best, even if 7 countries (whoever they are?) start to take drastic steps to reduce CO2 emissions, and we maintain the sort of economic structures that KS is 100% dependent on, then the planet faces a temperature rise of no less than 3.5 degrees above pre-industrial by as soon as 2035.
But lets pretend they are out, lets say the 3.5 doesn’t kick in until the 25 year old retires (@67), that would be 2053.
Even then if we are hitting that sort of temperature rise the 25 year old (along with the rest of the mammals on the planet) will be long gone before he retires.
To maintain Kiwi Saver and have it pay out a profit the system must keep growing, that means more roads, more deep sea oil, more ships travelling around NZ hitting rocks, MORE CO2.
So in a nut shell the Green Party are promoting the destruction of the very thing they were ‘created’ for, specificity to promote a healthy environment for future generations.
So Jan again how do these 2 actions relate to each other, how can you promote the destruction of the environment and the saving of the environment in the same breath.
As Derek Jensen says “We can’t live on the planet while destroying it”
I would like to think some of the Green Party politicians might have read the October 2010 report from Parliamentary support which states the world passed peak oil extraction back in 2005 – 2006 and that the economic ramifications are going to bite even more than they did when oil hit $147.00 a barrel …… by as soon as 2012, which is supported by the German Military, the CIA, and the IEA, also the US Department of Energy.
This is the New Zealand Parliamentary report http://oilcrash.com/articles/wake_up2.htm
The first reference http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/oil_peaking_netl.pdf ,
which is the Hirsch Report http://oilcrash.com/articles/hirsch.htm this is maybe easer to download as not a PDF.
Robert Hirsch stated that to mitigate the issue of global peak oil the world needed to move at WW2 industrial speed at least 15 years before the event, if we were to maintain life as we know it, i.e. driving to the supermarket, owning a car, having our retirement funds earning enough to mature in the black, etc. Clearly we are now over 20 years behind starting our preparations, this dose not bode well for future retires.
One of the first recommendations from all the reports, discussion groups, etc that I have read over the past 12 years is that we need to educate the masses, so the global governments can introduce austerity measures to wean us off fossil fuels, alas the Green Party are promoting the opposite, – “Keep paying into this retirement plan and all will be good for you”, when clearly this is a lie.