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Jordan Carter

Wellington, New Zealand

Savvy Internet evangelist

Interests: music, travel, film, gay, blogs, wine & food, reading, politics

Recent Activity

Two negotiations, one target: the Internet & our brighter future

This month two important negotiations happen that could affect anyone who uses the Internet. In Auckland, there is a negotiating round for the Trans Pacific Partnership, a managed economic and trade pact that includes an intellectual property chapter that has to be seen to be believed: that branch of Hollywood known as the US Trade Rep has pushed for things like outlawing parallel importing, and even trying to create property rights in data on the Internet while it is in transit. (Barking crazy stuff, really.) Half a world away in Dubai, a centuries-old UN organ called the International Telecommunications Union... Continue reading

Posted Dec 1, 2012 at Just Left

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Housing for all

100,000 new affordable houses. Backed up by a clear workable plan for achieving it, and an ideological shift to embrace the possibility of the government as a practical force for change. All eloquently set out in David Shearer's excellent speech to Party conference (which you can find here, including fact sheets!). This is a seismic change in New Zealand politics. It is part of Labour's evolution into an organisational and political force for change based on — and proud of — social democratic values: fairness, freedom and solidarity. The whole direction of change is as I described in my previous... Continue reading

Posted Nov 30, 2012 at Just Left

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So I am in Dunedin at the university for NetHuiSouth — a conference that is part of InternetNZ's effort to bring multi-stakeholder Internet governance out to the provinces. There's a strong focus on rural and provincial issues, as well as the traditional issues concerning the global governance of the Internet. The looming WCIT summit, where the International Telecommunications Union (set up two centuries ago) will try and get its grubby little hands on the Internet, will be a key issue of concern. I am also expecting reports back from the global Internet Governance Forum, held in Baku last month. It's... Continue reading

Posted Nov 22, 2012 at Just Left

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The Government Administration Ctte and #MarriageEquality

I said my piece this morning before the Select Committee hearing submissions on Louisa Wall's Marriage Equality legislation. I started with a story about my brother's wedding and reception, a hot balmy beautiful day in November 2005. The feedback from relatives there about how sad it was that I wouldn't be getting married - and from other relatives that 'oh well, there is always a civil union right?' (Separate but equal has a long lineage but not in New Zealand. It belongs in the past.) Moved on then to do a thought experiment - I asked MPs against to consider... Continue reading

Posted Nov 21, 2012 at Just Left

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Conference 2012

In many ways, the Labour Party conference last weekend was a triumph. A set of issues mean it doesn't feel like that right now, but in the longer term it will be seen that way. Why? I work in the Internet arena. It's decentralised. Hierarchy doesn't matter much. Ideas rise or fall on their merits. People's views are treated with respect, and everyone can have a say. It is those aspects of the Internet revolution - how it works and how it changes us - that keep me interested in it - and in politics. The 'net is changing society.... Continue reading

Posted Nov 20, 2012 at Just Left

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My marriage equality submission

If you're interested... Submission to the Government Administration Committee on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill 2012 Dear Committee members, Introduction 1. This personal submission is from Jordan Carter, 34 year old Canadian-born New Zealander living in Wellington. 2. I wish to appear before the Committee in support of this submission, if time can be found for this to be done. My contact details are provided separately. General position 3. I support the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, and I recommend the Bill be referred back to the House with the Committee’s support for its speedy passage. 4.... Continue reading

Posted Nov 20, 2012 at Just Left

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Changing Labour this weekend

Labour's annual conference meets in Auckland this weekend. It's the most important conference in a generation. Changes are on the table that will fundamentally change Labour, bringing it closer to the public and making it fit to lead New Zealand again. Stepping back from the day to day rush (and the chitter chatter about leadership issues, which is wildly overblown), Labour has taken the past few months to consider its structure and the way it organises. It hasn't been an internally focused review, though the outcomes being debated this weekend are focused on what Labour does. The focus has been:... Continue reading

Posted Nov 12, 2012 at Just Left

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Taming globalisation

2008 changed everything. The intellectual foundation of the policy framework we have used for thirty years was cut to pieces. The excuses and evasions of those in power across the West delivering stagnant wages, limiting opportunities, allowing asset price bubbles to explode and fertilising the soil that grew the Global Financial Crisis were at an end. The lesson since is about how hard it is to change to a new approach even when you know the old one is a zombie, a dead thing pretending to live but unmistakeably past it. If neo-liberal economy is bankrupt and a new thing... Continue reading

Posted Oct 24, 2012 at Just Left

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Inflation is not the problem

This morning, we learned that consumer price inflation in the year to 30 September was 0.8%, the lowest in thirteen years. Inflation is not the problem. Growth and exports are. David Parker is right: the country's monetary policy is busy fighting the last war. It's a classic example of limited thinking, focusing on the past. We do it all the time, but sometimes we also have the imagination and wit to start working on the problems the future poses. Hundreds of thousands of us are without enough work. Our incomes are too low. Our export economy is stuttering. Our economy... Continue reading

Posted Oct 15, 2012 at Just Left

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On dealing with child poverty

In a rather interesting post this morning, David Farrar over at Kiwiblog argued that National needs to do several things to regain momentum. Responding to rising concern about child poverty was one of them. One comment was particularly revealing: National’s policies around welfare reform, national standards, reducing child abuse, better domestic violence laws are in fact all about reducing real child poverty, and giving more kids a better start in life. The left’s only answer to these issues is tax and spend. They won’t confront the much tougher issues of welfare dependency, the bottom 20% of students etc. National will.... Continue reading

Posted Oct 10, 2012 at Just Left

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Should your ISP have to hold your hand?

In the security session at the Australian Internet Governance Forum this morning (see www.igf.org.au for info), an interesting dilemma about security responses by ISPs came up. There is the prospect that ISPs could use a range of more or less reliable technologies (from deep packet inspection to usage metering) to identify users whose accounts are creating a threat -- for instance, compromised computers being part of a botnet attack. The dilemma is, should they? It's easy to see an upside from such a step. If you were compromised, or thought to be, your computer could be put inside a walled... Continue reading

Posted Oct 10, 2012 at Just Left

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Responding to the New Zealand doldrums

It just keeps on getting worse. Today's reactionary announcement by the Government that it wants to cut the incomes of vulnerable young people comes at the same time as NZIER reports lowering business confidence and expectations about next year. Unemployment remains too high, manufacturing jobs are flooding out of the economy, and citizens are flooding across the Tasman to the land of milk and honey - or jobs and higher wages, at any rate. How the hell did it all go so wrong for National? Why are ordinary New Zealanders getting quickly grumpier with the gang in charge, sensing (not... Continue reading

Posted Oct 8, 2012 at Just Left

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Planet Key/National ""Facts"" #1

This is one for the books. Media, some fact checking? ANY fact checking? Please? From the Dominion Post on Friday 14 September, page 2: PM: economy on track - just ask the Aussies Prime Minister John Key said his Government was doing enough for the economy despite a recent spate of job losses. "The overall outlook is slightly improving ... My view is we've got absolutely the right plan to lift economic growth." Mr Key said many Australians were jealous of New Zealand's direction. "I guess that's the fact that they wanted me to go over and be their prime... Continue reading

Posted Sep 13, 2012 at Just Left

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The $78 billion

A new study out today (Stuff, Herald), which cost you and I $1,000,000 or so, shows what we already knew: that if everyone on a benefit stayed on it forever, it would cost us all a pile of cash. The pile would be of a size neither you nor I can understand: $78,000,000,000 or so. It shows those on the DPB or sickness or invalids benefits cost more than those on the dole. Wow. What a novelty. Except it isn't a novelty. You can work that out by simply applying a bit of logic. The longer you are on a... Continue reading

Posted Sep 11, 2012 at Just Left

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Education matters

Pleased with David Shearer's speech on education yesterday, two aspects in particular: 1. Making the link, explicitly, between poverty/inequality/social inclusion and educational success. We have a long tail at heart because the poorest and most vulnerable in NZ are left out. 2. Practical changes that will tackle that problem in the short and long term, and at the same time having a plan to improve school quality that will actually make things better instead of just trying to scare parents. It's good. Education is at the heart of a free and equal society. It's an issue the public knows we... Continue reading

Posted Sep 9, 2012 at Just Left

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The depoliticisation of economics

I was having a discussion on Facebook last night, sparked by my previous post, about why it is that there is so much more passion among parts of the left for marriage equality than more bread-and-butter issues such as, say, a living wage (as evidenced by the gallery people-flows last week). Allow me to suggest a reason why. Think about civil rights. For the past thirty years, decisions by our Parliament have been central to expanding the realm of human rights and freedoms. Homosexual law reform, the Human Rights Act, prostitution law reform, Civil Unions and now marriage equality (as... Continue reading

Posted Sep 4, 2012 at Just Left

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Hi Max, thanks for the comment. I've never thought that equality is the sole answer to problems or even always the right one. The trinity I cite in the title of this blog between them get it about right, I would contend. I don't think the language around equality per se is particularly a winner, but I am interested in thinking through different ways to talk about the ideal it represents. The language has been poisoned by a sustained assault over forty years, but the understanding of its relationship to human dignity and growth that lies behind it has not. Generally the "good reasons for treating people differently" tend towards being about equity (aimed at a substantive equality in any case), or based on the choices and behaviours they make or exhibit. Equality exists in a moral dimension that is not absolute. For winning the issues of our time, the big three of social democracy plust kawanatanga seem to me to be a pretty good fit...

Commented Sep 4, 2012 on Equality matters to us all at Just Left

Equality matters to us all

Equality is one of the most interesting values and principles of the labour movement, at least in part because we live in the Era of Freedom in so many ways. Individual choices and the right to be left alone are dominant in policy, politics and the media -- though of course not among citizens or in the way people actually live their lives. I was reminded of the importance of the principle in the somewhat strange debate that sees the occasional Labour person saying that marriage equality isn't an important issue. Of course it is. If your social or family... Continue reading

Posted Sep 3, 2012 at Just Left

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Campaign School mulling

I've spent the weekend in Hamilton at the first Young Labour campaign school. It's been an interesting couple of days for a number of reasons. The turnout was fantastic — around about sixty attendees not counting presenters. There was a good broad range of topics, from elections to issues campaigning and thinking about messaging and communications. Ten years after the first Summer School, which is a Labour Party event organised by Young Labour, a campaigning focus like this is well timed and much needed. Campaigning is core business for a political party and we don't make enough effort to teach... Continue reading

Posted Sep 1, 2012 at Just Left

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Have you been watching? I've seen the odd bit on Prime and plan to see the closing ceremony this morning. Britain's neurosis about whether it would be able to pull the event together has been a sight to see the past few years. I never thought there would be a problem: the idea a big developed country would fail at organising a sport tournament was never tenable. I'm glad they're pleased about it. Seems to have gone well. And soon the Spice Girls will be on stage once more... Continue reading

Posted Aug 12, 2012 at Just Left

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Political Leadership and #MarriageEquality

Change is a tough thing sometimes. This post is about political change, its history in New Zealand, and why Labour MPs need to grasp the nettle and support Marriage Equality, as a core part of Labour's vision for a country where everybody belongs. Political parties and movements that are progressive secure change by changing people's minds about issues. They do not ride with the grain of current opinion in those issues where change is demanded: they challenge it, they confront and cajole and persuade, and change people's minds. New Zealand has a long history of such persuasion. It's a give... Continue reading

Posted Aug 7, 2012 at Just Left

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#EQNZ - the graphic

Continue reading

Posted Jul 3, 2012 at Just Left

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This is interesting. I think growth could help, not least because if you have to increase taxes to pay for super, at least you can do that while simultaneously letting people's incomes rise in the hand as well (if growth is fast enough). In other words growth dilutes the distributive clash. The question then becomes, what are the sources of sustainable growth?

Commented Jul 3, 2012 on A Super question - your view? at Just Left

The ETS changes... and the bigger picture

I'm not surprised that National would continue to hand out a huge subsidy to farmers. The thing that gets me is the irrationality of it. We as a country chose an ETS because we thought that the market should be free to work out how best to reduce carbon emissions. The logic was that it would be better for firms and producers to face a price and allocate resources, rather than trying to regulate their specific behaviours. It's very public that GHG emissions from agriculture can easily be reduced. Tweaks to farming methods, grass choices and so on can make... Continue reading

Posted Jul 2, 2012 at Just Left

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A Super question - your view?

So the super debate is heating up. I have a question for you: Does economic growth solve our Superannuation dilemma? I've heard arguments both ways: the wages link seems to militate towards seeing it as a problem; the cost of healthcare always gets a bit sidelined; we don't actually know with great certainty the demographic future. What do you think? Continue reading

Posted Jun 18, 2012 at Just Left

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