Deepening crisis in New Zealand public health system

Tom Peters

New Zealand’s public health system faces a rapidly worsening crisis, with growing levels of unmet need and understaffing, as the National Party-led government ramps up its brutal austerity program. The ruling class is forcing workers to pay for the economic downturn with cuts to jobs, wages and vital public services.

Waikato Hospital [Photo: Facebook/Waikato Hospital]

In July, the government replaced the board of Health New Zealand with a commissioner, former private hospital chief executive Lester Levy, who is tasked with making $1.4 billion in “savings” across the health system.

This is to be achieved largely through job cuts. On August 28, Health NZ called for “expressions of interest in voluntary redundancy” from workers in non-clinical roles. Chief executive Margie Apa told workers in an email that this would likely be followed by “formal change consultation processes over the coming months,” i.e. mandatory cutbacks. Thousands of people could lose their jobs.

The reduction in so-called “back office” roles is accompanied by a hiring freeze in many hospitals, despite a desperate shortage of thousands of nurses and doctors.

Radio NZ (RNZ) reported on August 30 that more than 30 doctors at Gisborne Hospital had written to MPs and Health NZ calling for urgent action to address critical shortages. Senior doctor Alex Raines said the hospital had only a third of the number of anaesthetists it should have. The operating theatre was forced to run at half capacity some weeks as a result.

The Northern Advocate reported that since July night shifts at Dargaville Hospital have been run without a single doctor present. Nurses protested against the unsafe conditions, which meant critically ill patients had to be transferred to Whangarei, an hour’s drive away.

On August 30, more than 600 nurses and other workers held a 90-minute stop-work meeting to protest conditions at Waikato Hospital. Nurse Tracy Chisholm told RNZ that the emergency department alone had a shortage of 20 nurses and healthcare assistants. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) said there were about 600 unfilled nursing vacancies across the region.

Waikato Hospital was reportedly running with just 40 percent of the necessary medical registrars on August 24‒25. Doctor Natalie Quin told the Waikato Times she felt “morally impaired, because we are not practising medicine properly.” She had reported at least 10 “patient harm events” caused by understaffing. One person had waited around six weeks in hospital for coronary bypass surgery.

At Taranaki Hospital, the Resident Doctors’ Association told Stuff on August 20 that four out of the 14 medical registrar positions had been vacant for six months. The remaining 10 registrars were frequently working 60 hours a week as a result.

On August 12 the New Zealand Herald reported that patients in severe mental health crises were “waiting for up to 72 hours for care in the South Auckland region” because of a shortage of full-time doctors and nurses in the region’s 24-hour crisis response unit.

The situation in primary healthcare is equally dire, with an estimated shortage of 500 general practitioners nationwide. A recent survey by the General Practice Owners Association of 244 practices—one quarter of the total number in New Zealand—found that 89 percent had increased or were about to increase their fees and 41 percent had reduced services in the past six months.

For decades, government funding for GPs has not kept up with increased demand and cost pressures. This year’s increase was just 4 percent, which will force further cuts.

The New Zealand Herald reported this week that dozens of sick and elderly people in the working class Auckland suburb of Ōtara are regularly lining up outside Ōtara Local Doctors and Urgent Care from 6:00 a.m. The clinic is one of few that allows walk-ins and has relatively low fees. Booking an appointment elsewhere often means waiting for weeks.

Greg McIndoe, a 66-year-old who recently underwent knee surgery and has chronic pain, said the situation was “outrageous.” He had to wait for hours in the cold twice a week to see a doctor.

Healthcare workers are attempting to fight back. Earlier this year, about 2,500 junior doctors held several one-day strikes to demand a decent wage increase. Last month about 2,500 St John Ambulance workers took limited industrial action, opposing a pay freeze and calling for more government funding. The trade union bureaucracy, however, is keeping all these disputes divided from each other, preventing any effective campaign against the austerity regime.

The Public Service Association (PSA) issued a statement on August 28 calling Health NZ’s latest proposed staff cuts “unfocused,” “reckless” and “a prelude to privatisation.” The PSA, however, has worked with the government to implement more than 6,000 layoffs across multiple government departments.

Opposition Labour Party health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall also postured as an opponent of the cuts, saying “[Health Minister] Shane Reti needs to explain how a modern, efficient, patient-centred health system can function without non-clinical staff supporting the frontline.”

In fact, the National-led government is picking up where Labour left off. More than 500 “back office” job cuts were made during the 2020-2023 Labour Party-led government as part of the establishment of Health NZ through the amalgamation of the country’s district health boards.

The Labour government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, starved the public health system of funding. The NZNO and other unions ensured that workers’ struggles were isolated and sold out.

Ardern ended the country’s zero-COVID policy in late 2021, adopting the criminal policy of mass infection that was demanded by big business. This was imposed with the crucial assistance of the trade unions, which did not lift a finger as mask mandates and other public health measures were removed.

So far more than 43,000 people have been hospitalised and over 4,100 have died due to COVID-19, placing an immense burden on the healthcare system and resulting in longer delays for thousands of patients. This avoidable disaster, alongside the cost of living crisis and increased poverty, was a major factor in Labour’s crushing defeat in the October 2023 election.

The demand for high-quality, free public healthcare, available to everyone who needs it, must be taken up by the working class in opposition to the entire capitalist political establishment including Labour and the union bureaucracy.

The government’s claim that there is “no money” to fully fund health services is a lie. What is required is the socialist reorganisation of society: The billions of dollars in the coffers of the financial elite, and the money wasted on military spending for war, must be redistributed to rebuild and expand hospitals, hire thousands more doctors and nurses and to eliminate COVID-19 and other preventable diseases.

Unstable right-wing government formed in Thailand

Ben McGrath

A new ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai Party has taken shape in Thailand, nearly three weeks after the Constitutional Court removed previous prime minister Srettha Thavisin. The formation of a new government, however, will not resolve any of the issues facing the Thai ruling class amid ongoing factional conflict within its ranks.

Thailand Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

Paetongtarn was elected by the lower house of the National Assembly on August 16, two days after Srettha was forced from office, on bogus ethics violations. Pheu Thai intends to finalize Paetongtarn’s administration this week by sending its list of 35 cabinet ministers to King Vajiralongkorn for royal endorsement.

The Pheu Thai-led coalition is comprised of 10 parties, down from 11 under Srettha. The military-aligned Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) was forced out of the coalition and in its place is the Democrat Party, a long-time opponent of Pheu Thai and its de facto leader Thaksin Shinawatra, the father of the prime minister. In addition, a faction has split from the PPRP, joining the new government. It is led by Thamanat Prompow who supposedly broke with the party out of anger at being excluded from the PPRP’s list of cabinet minister nominees.

This ungainly coalition gives the new government 322 seats in the lower house of the National Assembly while the opposition holds 171 seats, 143 of which are controlled by the so-called People’s Party, the latest iteration of the now-dissolved Move Forward Party (MFP). Six seats are vacant.

The conflicts and shuffling of parties in the coalition point to the highly unstable nature of the alliance formed between Pheu Thai and the traditional sections of the ruling class associated with the military and monarchy. In fact, while the new government has not even been formally established, the Thai media has reported that petitions are being filed with the Election Commission (EC) to dissolve Pheu Thai. The party is charged with being under the influence of Thaksin, who is not formally a party member which is illegal under the Political Parties Act. EC Chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong has denied seeing any petitions.

This continuing political instability followed the 2023 general election. The military used its control of the Senate at the time to block the election-winning MFP from taking power. Conscious that outright election rigging coupled with declining social conditions could set off protests bringing in the working class, the military chose to reach a deal with Pheu Thai. The latter formed a government that prominently included the PPRP as well as the United Thai Nation Party (UTN) associated with 2014 coup leader and then-outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

The removal of the PPRP from the government coalition does not represent a move away from the military. In reality, Pheu Thai which was ousted in military coups in 2006 and 2014, remains at the beck and call of the military within the government represented by the UTN.

Pheu Thai is simply engaged in maneuver to isolate PPRP leader Prawit Wongsuwon, another of the 2014 coup leaders, after he did not participate in the vote to approve Paetongtarn as prime minister. Pheu Thai has also accused Prawit of orchestrating the removal of Srettha by being the driving force behind the 40 former senators who filed the ethics complaint leading to his removal from office.

Coup leader Prayut is no longer officially a member of the party, but he remains a highly influential figure. He is currently a Privy Councillor to the king. The inclusion of Thamanat’s breakaway faction from the PPRP is another sign that Pheu Thai is determined to maintain its connections to the military and the right-wing sections of the ruling class they represent.

Furthermore, as with Srettha’s cabinet, a significant number of posts in Paetongtarn’s government have been allotted to former ministers in Prayut’s military junta. Of the 35 ministers, nine served in Prayut’s cabinet, including two newcomers to the cabinet: Narumon Pinyosinwat, who has been appointed minister of agriculture and cooperatives and Chalermchai Sri-on, appointed as natural resources and environment minister.

Significantly, Natthapon Nakpanich, who has been appointed deputy defense minister, has close links to Prayut and is regarded as his protégé. Natthapon also served as secretary to outgoing Defense Minister Sutin Klungsang where he used his power to obstruct attempts to reform the military. Pheu Thai has proposed minor and largely symbolic reforms that powerful sections of the military have rejected, fearing any changes will impact their wide-ranging business interests.

The inclusion of the Democrats also demonstrates that Pheu Thai is attempting to court the most right-wing layers. The Democrats have been a longtime opposition party and were elevated to power against the People’s Power Party, the predecessor of Pheu Thai. After the military removed Thaksin in a coup in 2006, his party returned to power only to be removed from office by the Constitutional Court in 2008 and replaced with the Democrats. This culminated in mass protests in 2010 against the Democrats that were violently suppressed by the military killing 99 people.

These are the very political forces that Pheu Thai relies upon to stay in power. Paetongtarn claimed that the Democrats’ inclusion was necessary to form “a stable government” and to pass laws “to address people’s problems.” In reality, the new government will address the country’s deepening economic problems by imposing new burdens on working people.

The ruling class is conscious that it sits atop a social powder keg. Thailand is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with the top one percent alone holding 56 percent of total wealth, a source of great tensions. Workers and the poor face huge levels of household debt and low wages.

The economy grew by only 1.9 percent last year. While it is projected to expand by 2.4 percent in 2024, this is nowhere near the 5 percent promised by previous Prime Minister Srettha. The economy is suffering in part due to the US-led trade war against China that is affecting countries throughout the region. Since July 2023, the working class has faced huge job cuts, with more than 2,000 factories closing and approximately 51,500 workers sacked.

The government is incapable of addressing let alone resolving the worsening social and economic crisis facing workers and the poor, and will turn to increasingly repressive measures as social tensions and political opposition grow.

Protests and general strike in Israel pose the need to break with Zionism

Thomas Scripps

People attend a rally demanding a cease-fire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the deaths of six hostages in the Palestinian territory , in Jerusalem, on Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. [AP Photo/Leo Correa]

The mass protests of the past two days in Israel have exposed the broad popular opposition to the far-right Netanyahu government, but also the political impasse confronted by any oppositional movement that remains trapped within a Zionist perspective.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets on Sunday, including significant sections of workers, in what was the largest day of protest since Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza began last October. The demonstrations denounced the government’s failure to secure a hostage-exchange deal and were prompted by the recovery of six dead Israelis from Gaza the day before. The Histadrut trade union federation responded by calling a general strike on Monday.

Anger was enflamed by the news that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet had effectively torpedoed a hostage exchange deal just days before, on Thursday, by insisting on continued occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt. According to an Israeli Health Ministry postmortem, the six hostages had been killed as recently as Thursday or Friday, amid fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian fighters.

The events starkly exposed the Israeli government’s contempt for the lives not only of Palestinians in Gaza, but also of the hostages—whom it cynically uses as a pretext to wage a war of annihilation aiming to murder and expel as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza and increasingly from the West Bank as well. Escalating Israeli military attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as against Syria and Iran, threaten a catastrophic escalation of the conflict across the region.

Since the first and only exchange in November-December 2023—of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held captive in Israel’s prisons—every time a similar deal has appeared to be possible, the Netanyahu government has done something to sabotage it. The Israeli regime is not trying to save lives, it is massacring Palestinians and threatening a regional bloodbath of Arabs and Israelis in pursuit of its ethnic supremacist ends.

The deaths of the six hostages brought a broad section of Israeli society face-to-face with this reality. But it cannot be changed, as the current outlook of the protests suggests, by placing pressure on Netanyahu or by replacing him with other war criminals.

No progressive struggle can be taken up against the Israeli government without opposing the genocide which has so far claimed at least 40,000—and most likely closer to 200,000—Palestinian lives.

Histadrut chair Arnon Bar-David’s pledge that “we won’t allow life to be abandoned” must be treated with contempt. This is precisely what the nationalist Histadrut bureaucracy has done for the last 11 months. Ignoring the call of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions Gaza for international solidarity action to stop the genocide in Gaza, it has worked to divide Jewish from Arab workers and allow the massacre of innocent men, women and children to continue. The issues raised by the mass protest movement which swept Israel in the first half of 2023 are raised again, brought to a level of extreme urgency by the war.

In that movement, in which a significant percentage of Israeli society protested Netanyahu’s efforts to carry out a far-right judicial coup, defence minister Yoav Gallant, former defence minister Benny Gantz and former prime minister Yair Lapid were put forward as opposition leaders. The protest organizers based themselves on complete support for the Zionist project and refused to take up the question on the democratic rights of the oppressed Palestinian people.

That perspective is in large part responsible for the catastrophe which has since unfolded. As the World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time:

Despite its enormous scale, however, this mass movement has a weakness that will prove fatal if not combatted: It has not so far embraced in any way the struggles of the Palestinian people…

To have any chance of success, Jewish workers and youth must cast off the blinders of Zionist ideology and adopt a socialist strategy…

It is impossible for Jewish workers and youth to defend their democratic rights under conditions where the Palestinian population of Israel and the occupied territories remains under savage military repression and increasingly brazen vigilante and settler violence. There cannot be military dictatorship in the West Bank and Gaza and democracy within Israel.

The protests were wound down, even as abuses of the Palestinians under the far-right government continued.

After the October 7 incursion, Gallant and Gantz were both happy to take part in Netanyahu’s war cabinet and its crimes, while Lapid took on the role of an unswervingly loyal “opposition.” Now they are again put forward as the answer to a crisis placed solely at the door of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and still framed solely in terms of the harm done to Israelis.

Gallant is being touted for his sole vote of opposition in Thursday’s cabinet meeting to Netanyahu’s insistence on including the Philadelphi Corridor as a condition. Gantz had left the government in June.

But this is a falling out among war criminals. Both Gallant and Gantz have been willing participants at the highest level in Israel’s genocide—Gallant, alongside Netanyahu, is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Theirs is a purely tactical disagreement, on the basis of the same Zionist perspective; and moreover, with an eye to furthering Israel’s war plans against Lebanon and Iran, which Gallant in particular feels are undermined by unnecessarily bogging down Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

The political bankruptcy of an anti-government opposition which bases itself on these figures was indicated Monday, when protests were reduced in size and the strike severely limited. Many demonstrations and stoppages had the character of a day of mourning for the killed hostages more than of a struggle against Netanyahu. Histadrut’s careful management of the movement was summed up by its compliance with a court order ending the strike at 2:30 p.m., rather than the planned 6 p.m.

Without a new axis of political struggle being taken up by the Israeli working class, in unity with and fighting for the liberation of the Palestinian masses from Zionist oppression, the Israeli regime will continue with its policy of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, whether under Netanyahu, Gallant or someone else.

As ever, Netanyahu’s immediate response to the threat to his personal political position is to escalate Israeli aggression in an effort to create the most right-wing climate possible and embolden his fascist supporters, telling a specially called news conference, “we will not surrender to pressure.”

Netanyahu knows he can act with such impunity because he has the full military and diplomatic backing of the NATO imperialist powers, which support the genocide in Gaza as part of an escalating global war, including the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

Spain’s PSOE-Sumar government threatens mass expulsions of migrants and refugees

Alejandro López

In Dakar, Senegal on Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE-Sumar coalition government declared that expelling undocumented migrants and refugees from Spain is “essential.” Speaking during a West African tour aimed at curbing migration to Spain and Europe, he claimed these expulsions sends a “disincentive, clear and forceful message to the mafias and to those who put themselves in their hands.” He claimed security is his “top priority.”

Spain's PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Economy Minister and first Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calvino and Sumar’s Labor Minister and Second Deputy Yolanda Diaz at the Spanish parliament in Madrid, Spain on Friday, September 29, 2023. [AP Photo/Bernat Armangue]

In a law-and-order speech that could have been given by any far-right European politician or US presidential candidate Donald Trump, Sánchez claimed the mafias “only play with the lives of our compatriots, breaking the future of many young people who are deceived and the hopes of the families who trust them, but they also associate and spread other crimes such as illicit trafficking of all kinds and also terrorism.”

Such claims are ludicrous. While many migrants pay smugglers to help transport them in dangerous journeys, usually in makeshift boats across the Mediterranean or through the even more dangerous route to the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa, the root causes for this do not lie in “mafias.” They are to be found in the poverty, wars, the corporate destruction of livelihoods—particularly fishing,—and climate change that are themselves the product of the crisis of capitalism.

In the first five months of this year, over 5,000 refugees died—an average of 33 deaths per day—on the perilous Atlantic route to the Canary Islands, now the deadliest migration path in the world. This crisis intensified after agreements between the European Union and Tunisia led to a 66 percent drop in arrivals to Italy—largely due to brutal police violence against migrants by Tunisian authorities. Consequently, the Canary Islands route is rapidly becoming the last resort for many desperate refugees.

Sánchez’s attempt to link “terrorism” with undocumented migration is baseless and part of a broader strategy to criminalise immigrants and provide pretexts to advance Spanish imperialism’s geopolitical interests in West Africa. Under the previous PSOE-Podemos government, Sánchez successfully pressed NATO to define migration as a “hybrid threat” in its 2022 strategic document, which also emphasized the need to defend NATO’s “southern flank.”

Madrid launched a murderous crackdown on refugees and asylum seekers, with one atrocity coming just days before NATO’s document was approved. The PSOE-Podemos government orchestrated the infamous Melilla Massacre, where Spanish and Moroccan security forces caused the deaths of at least 100 migrants through suffocation from tear gas, beatings, and the ensuing stampede. This revealed the Spanish ruling class’s intent to use the arrival of a few thousand refugees as a pretext for neo-colonial interventions in resource-rich regions of North and sub-Saharan Africa.

Masses of migrants are fleeing wars backed by Spanish imperialism. Many new arrivals come from Mali, passing through the impoverished nation of Mauritania, which currently hosts 200,000 Malian refugees despite having only 4.7 million inhabitants.

In 2021, war broke out between militias and jihadist groups and the Mali authorities. The war itself erupted after the country was plunged into chaos following NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, which was imperialism’s response to the revolutionary uprisings of the working class in Tunisia and Egypt that same year. Spain, under a PSOE government, also participated in the war, which was led by then Chief of the Defence Staff General Julio Rodríguez Fernández. He would later be recruited by the pseudo-left Podemos party as a candidate for the 2015 general elections.

Capitalist-induced climate change is also displacing large numbers of migrants due to the increases in surface temperatures, hot extremes, sea level rise, high-intensity precipitation, as well as frequency and severity of coastal flooding. In 2022, Nigeria alone experienced over 2.4 million internal displacements, primarily caused by severe floods. According to the World Bank, climate change could force up to 86 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to migrate within their own countries by 2050.

In countries like Senegal, European fishing corporations, particularly Spain’s, also play a role in destroying the livelihoods of local fishermen, the industry which employs 17 percent of the population. Over-fishing, industrial competition between Senegalese wooden canoes and large European vessels that catch far larger volumes of fish, and the impacts of climate change on the volume of fish, are all provoking a collapse in living standards.

Despite Sánchez’s fascistic anti-migrants calls, the Spanish ruling class cannot dispense itself from migrant labour. On his tour, Sánchez’s signed circular migration agreements with Mauritania, The Gambia and Senegal.

It allows Spanish corporations to hire cheap labour from countries of origin with the aim of bringing workers to Spain to work seasonally in sectors that face greater challenges in filling vacancies because of low salaries and precarious working conditions, such as agriculture, construction, textile and hospitality. Once their contract—usually a fixed-term one, which cannot last more than nine months each year—ends, the worker then must return to their home country.

This mechanism is not a “progressive alternative” as painted by the PSOE and its ally, Sumar, but aims to create a whole new category of exploited workers, virtually without rights and wholly at the mercy of their employers and the government who may withdraw their contracts at will, and then expel them back to their countries of origins at the slightest protest.

The week-long sickening anti-migrant spectacle of PSOE-Sumar government was joined by the other bourgeois parties. Right-wing Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo accused Sánchez’s circular migration programmes of provoking more migration. “It is irresponsible to encourage a pull factor in the worst irregular migration crisis” he said. The fact is, the reactionary programme is based on the Migration Law passed in the year 2000 by both the PP and PSOE.

Neo-fascist Vox leader Santiago Abascal intervened to incite pogrom-style attacks on migrants. “They are promoting an invasion. They are doing it hand in hand with the Popular Party and all their international masters, from Ursula [von der Leyen] to Kamala. Spaniards are going to have to start defending themselves on their own. But seriously. Because the governments […] has directly betrayed, deceived, and sold them out.”

Podemos, now posing as the “left” opposition to the PSOE-Sumar government whilst being a key prop in sustaining the minority government, criticised Sánchez and the PP. Podemos leader Ione Belarra stated, “The PP is just as responsible as the PSOE for a migration policy that puts lives at risk, forcing people to risk their lives at sea. [The answer is] open legal and safe pathways and granting citizenship to migrants who live here without rights.”

However, Podemos, along with the PP and PSOE, bears chief responsibility for advancing the fascist anti-migrant agenda championed by Vox and the EU’s draconian “Fortress Europe” policy. During the PSOE-Podemos coalition government (2019-2023), tens of thousands of migrants drowned attempting to reach the Canary Islands. Those who survived the perilous journey were confined in detention centers, constructed under the auspices of PSOE and Podemos, where they endured unsanitary and inhumane conditions while awaiting deportation.

Podemos also made history by deploying the military against refugees. In May 2021, more than a year before the Melilla Massacre, that also happened under Podemos’ watch. The government, with the backing of the European Union, responded to desperate migrants crossing from Morocco into Spain by deploying the army and special forces—marking the first time the military was used against refugees in Spain. This government further violated international law by forcibly returning hundreds of unaccompanied child migrants to Morocco.

The attacks on migrants by the whole ruling establishment, however, does not enjoy mass support among the population, who oppose attacks on democratic rights, austerity, war and militarism.

This class gulf was in full display last Sunday during the Aste Nagusia festivities in Bilbao, the Basque Country, when hundreds of people formed a human wall around street vendors—mostly undocumented migrants—chanting “Manteroekin Bat!” (With the street vendors!) to stop the police from evicting and harassing them.

The federation of organisers of the festivities, Bilboko Konpartsak, issued a statement denouncing police: “We could list the specific incidents, as there have been many attacks against these people. They use violent language, identify them, confiscate their merchandise (which is their livelihood), and sometimes even steal their personal belongings. Unfortunately, this happens throughout the year, including during Aste Nagusia. We find the aggressive and violent behavior of the officers unacceptable, and we want to emphasise that all of this is the result of a political decision.”

Thai opposition party turns to right after being anti-democratically dissolved

Robert Campion

Following the anti-democratic dissolution of the Move Forward Party (MFP) last month, Thailand’s main opposition party has regrouped in what is now called the People’s (Prachachon) Party. It remains the largest, single party in the National Assembly while continuing to posture as a progressive party opposed to the traditional elites centred on the military and the monarchy.

People's Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, standing at the Parliament in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 16, 2024 [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

The rebranding of the MFP took place on August 9, two days after the party was formally banned by Thailand’s military-appointed Constitutional Court (CC). Eleven leading figures in the party, including members of parliament, are barred from politics for ten years. The remaining 143 MPs then joined the micro Thinkakhao Chaowilai Party, renaming it the People’s Party (PP).

The court dissolved the MFP on the phony claims that it was seeking to overthrow the monarchy as part of its campaign pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law. Also referred to as Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, the lèse-majesté law forbids any criticism of the king with punishments of up to 15 years for each offence. Since large-scale, student-led protests in 2020, it has been used to charge around 272 protesters and government critics, with one individual sentenced to a record 50 years.

The dissolution is bound up with the crisis of bourgeois rule in Thailand. Two days after the ruling, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Pheu Thai was also dismissed by the Constitutional Court for supposedly breaching “ethical standards” by appointing as cabinet member a lawyer who was sentenced to six months in prison for corruption in 2008.

The conservative establishment is aware that it sits on a social powder keg due to low economic growth, low wages, exorbitant household debt and growing attacks on job positions as factories throughout Thailand close. Thailand consistently ranks as one of the most socially unequal countries in the world in terms of wealth inequality with the top 1 percent holding 56 percent of total wealth—a source of immense social tensions.

Having lost the popular vote in the 2023 general election, the layers close to the military and monarchy are opting to eliminate their political opponents through “legal” means to give their anti-democratic manoeuvres a veneer of legitimacy. The MFP garnered more than 14 million votes in last year’s election, more than any other party.

The PP is the third iteration of the party, which was originally founded in 2018 as the Future Forward Party (FFP) by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, once the richest member of parliament. The FFP was dissolved in 2020 by the Constitutional Court under another phony pretext that the party violated election law in the manner it accepted donations.

The PP is now led by 37-year-old Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and is representative of the well-off social layers the party speaks for. Son of wealthy real estate tycoon Suchart Ruengpanyawut, Natthaphong holds declared assets of 397.3 million baht ($US11.6 million), including a plot of land and four buildings in Bangkok. After graduating as a computer engineer from the prestigious Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, he founded the software development firm, Absolute Management Solutions.

Natthaphong, like his predecessors MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat and Thanathorn, represents layers of the ruling class dissatisfied with the monopoly control of the economy by conservative sections associated with the military and the monarchy. In 2019, Natthaphong joined the FFP and has been a close political ally of Thanathorn.

Following the MFP dissolution ruling, Natthaphong has worked to prevent mass protests like those that took place in 2020-21 following the FFP’s dissolution, by calling on supporters to look towards the 2027 general election. Thanathorn, who now leads an organisation aligned with the PP known as Progressive Movement, urged members and supporters of the MFP to “just shrug and move forward” and to respond to injustice by simply “working harder”.

In little more than two weeks, more than 62,000 people have registered as members of the People’s Party and raised over 26 million baht ($US758,000) in donations, far exceeding its announced goal of 10 million baht by the end of the month. It is aiming to recruit 100,000 new members in a one-month span. Undoubtedly, many have joined the party or supported the party, concerned about the brazen attacks on democratic rights.

The refusal of the MFP, now the PP, to call protests and rallies to defend democratic rights reflects its fear, and that of the ruling class as a whole, that the opposition could spiral out of control, involve the working class and threaten bourgeois rule. The party has confined its opposition to the military-appointed Constitutional Court while tamely accepting its dissolution and reforging itself to function as a parliamentary opposition.

The newly adopted PP slogan is “liberty, equality, fraternity” of the 1789 French Revolution. However, no section of the bourgeoisie—in Thailand or internationally—bears any resemblance to the rising bourgeoisie in 18th century France which overthrew the feudal monarchy and aristocracy with the support of sections of the middle classes and the oppressed masses.

The PP’s stated aim of forming a single party government in the 2027 election is intended to attract votes while attempting to convince workers and youth that democracy can be defended through the thoroughly anti-democratic parliamentary system imposed by the military after the 2014 coup.

Natthaphong stated in parliament that the party aims to fix the “root problems”, being the constitution and the unchecked power of “independent” organisations such as the Constitutional Court. Such comments are deliberately deceiving. The Thai military, which has a long history of coups this century and last, has made absolutely clear that it will resist any attempt to fundamentally change the constitution it drew up or the Constitutional Court that it appointed.

The root cause of the destruction of basic democratic rights in Thailand and internationally is the profit system. As the global crisis of capitalism worsens and social inequality deepens, the ruling classes are incapable of imposing huge new burdens on working people democratically.

The legal cases against the PP have not ended. Sawang Boonmee, secretary-general of the Election Commission, has responded to accusations that the PP is illegally receiving donations before being formally launched, saying he would look into the claims.

There are also 44 MPs and party members, including Natthaphong, who face possible lifetime bans for supporting a past bill to amend the draconian lèse-majesté law. This was specifically cited by the CC in its ruling dissolving the MFP and is being deliberated over by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

In an interview with Nation TV, Natthaphong stated he was not worried about the investigation, saying that he simply signed the bill, but “did not join any anti-monarchy rallies, seek bail for the activists, or put up stickers showing solidarity with the anti-monarchy activists.”

The Move Forward Party gained substantial support particularly from young people in the mass protests after the 2019 election as a result of its opposition to the military and calls for limited democratic reforms. The comments of Natthaphong disowning any connection to the protest movement are a clear sign that the party is shifting to the right and seeking an accommodation with the Bangkok establishment.

Up to 2 million UK pensioners will be in “serious trouble” this winter with 10 percent energy bills rise/means test introduction

Dennis Moore

This winter will see households across the UK hit with increases in energy bills following regulator Ofgem’s announcing an increase in the cap on prices for electricity and gas.

The regulator said that the rise was made necessary by heightened political tensions, energy market prices and extreme weather events. Met Office official guidance for the UK is that El Nino winters are more likely to be colder, and also more frequent due to climate change.

Blue flame coming out of a gas stove burner. [Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis/Flickr / CC BY 4.0]

From October 1 to December 31, energy bills for a typical household using electricity and gas and paying directly from a bank account will go up 10 percent (£149 per year). Average payments for a dual fuel energy bill will increase to £1,717 a year—from the current £1,568 in place since July. The sum could be larger if the winter is colder than expected and households need to keep the heating on for longer.

Prices could be hiked again this winter. Ofgem’s next review—to cover the period January 1 to March 31, 2025—will be announced by November 25.

Analysis carried out by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition found that, in real terms, these changes will mean that some older people will face the highest energy bills on record.

Many older people already live in constant fear of turning the heating on, worried about bills they will not be able to pay, endangering their health and lives. There is no question that the further increase in the cost of energy will lead to even more deaths among the most vulnerable people, on top of the thousands who already die each winter—many faced with the terrible choice of heating or eating.

The higher energy bills are compounded by July’s sadistic announcement by Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves that the universal Winter Fuel Payments scheme for millions of pensioners is to be scrapped, instead only being paid to those in receipt of means-tested benefits such as Pension Credit. To receive pension credit, a pensioner must have an income of no more than £12,000 a year.

The fuel allowance, worth between £100 and £300, was paid to 11.4 million pensioners in 8.4 million households in the winter of 2022/23. Its scrapping means an estimated 10 million pensioners across England and Wales will face far higher energy costs this winter. Under Labour’s means test, payments worth £200 will be made to households receiving pension credits, rising to £300 for over-80s.

The joint impact of energy price increases and the removal of winter fuel payments will be devastating for the elderly, particularly the elderly and disabled. Those dependent on feeding machines, powered chairs, and other electrical devices must now pay more to run this vital equipment.

Poverty and elderly charities denounced the measure. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has estimated that 4,950 excess winter deaths were caused by people having to live in cold homes during the winter of 2022/23.

A spokesperson for the organization commented, “Pensioners will feel the brunt of the energy price hike this winter. In fact, for older people who previously had the Winter Fuel Payment, new analysis shows that their bills this winter will be the highest on record.

“The Chancellor’s cruel decision to axe winter fuel payments for millions will prove a false economy as more vulnerable people succumb to the health complications from living in cold damp homes and turn to the NHS [National Health Service] for help this winter.”

Co-ordinator Simon Francis said, “This has the potential to create a public health emergency which will actually create more pressure on the under-pressure NHS which the Prime Minister says he wants to fix”.

This week, Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended Reeves’ policy, insisting that nothing could jeopardize the economic interests of the capitalist class. Speaking from Downing Street, Starmer said of the first government budget scheduled for October—in which £22 billion in spending cuts are planned—it is “going to be painful.”

On cutting pensioner payments, he said, “I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice that we had to make, a choice to protect the most vulnerable pensioners while doing what is necessary to repair the public finances.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, August 27, 2024 [Photo by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

Reeves and Starmer lie that vulnerable pensioners will be protected, when at least 1.8 million of the poorest will be hit by the cut. Age UK commented that Labour’s policy means “as many as two million pensioners who badly need the money to stay warm this winter will not receive it and will be in serious trouble as a result”.

The increase in energy costs comes at a time when many households are already in fuel poverty.

Research from the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) shows that one in four people (16.5 million) are so worried about increases in energy costs that they will be forced to turn off heating and hot water this winter. Nearly half the population (35.1 million people) will have to turn down or turn off their heating or hot water; a third (22.8 million) will have difficulty affording food or other essentials, such as their rent, mortgage or childcare; and 7 percent (4.5 million) think they will be forced to skip meals.

The CAB is helping record numbers of people with energy debt, now the most common debt people are seeking help with. There are nearly 5 million people across Britain that live in households in debt to their energy supplier, including 14 percent of households with children under 18.

Five million people are defined as having a negative budget, with more money being paid out than income coming in. It is estimated that the price cap increase to almost £150 will pull a further 187,000 people into negative budget.

Gillian Cooper, director of energy at Citizens Advice, said, “Energy bills will now be around two thirds higher than before the crisis, and with record levels of debt and removal of previous support, people are in desperate need.”

The pauperization of millions is directly linked to the wealth of corporations and their shareholders. Ofgem included a note in its announcement on price rises that the profit margins energy suppliers will be allowed to make will increase by 11 percent. A staggering £420 billion in profit has been raked in by the large energy companies since bills first shot up in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Around £30 billion of this has gone to those business units and firms that maintain the wires and pipes to deliver electricity and gas—equivalent to over £1,000 per household. These companies are paid through the standing charge part of energy bills, which has increased by 147 percent since 2021, to an average of £334.

Unemployment sharply escalates in New Zealand

John Braddock

Figures released in August showed 33,000 more New Zealanders are unemployed compared to the same time last year. Total unemployment at the end of June stood at 143,000, the highest since March 2021.

Stats NZ data showed the annual unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in the June quarter, from 4.4 percent in the previous quarter. The level of underutilisation, a measure of “slack” in the jobs market, rose to 11.8 percent from 11.2 percent.

New Zealand Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers 2024 budget, May 30, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/Nicola Willis MP]

According to Radio NZ (RNZ), Auckland University of Technology economics professor Tim Maloney says that based on data on benefits and filled jobs, unemployment very likely had hit 4.8 percent in July. The Reserve Bank expects the rate to peak at 5.4 percent in a year’s time but Maloney predicts, with possible recessions looming in New Zealand and internationally, it could reach that level far sooner.

The jobs carnage has continued throughout August with 1,000 more people pushed onto welfare every week, including 250 from the beleaguered construction sector. In the biggest city Auckland, there are currently 11 jobseekers for every vacancy. In the Manawatu-Whanganui region the number is 17 jobseekers for every vacancy.

Last week the farmer-owned dairy co-op Fonterra, the country’s major exporter, announced 80 finance jobs will be cut in the Hamilton office as it outsources work to existing partner accounting firm, Accenture which has offices in the Philippines and India.

The economic crisis is exacerbated by an electricity shortage and soaring prices. Winstone Pulp International declared recently that it can no longer afford the energy bill for its Karioi Pulpmill and Tangiwai Sawmill. The closures scheduled for mid-September will make 230 workers redundant in the rural Ruapehu district where there are few other job options. Dozens more contractors who depend on the mills will also be driven out of work, and nearby towns such as Raetihi, Ohakune and Waiouru face further depopulation.

Another paper milling company, Oji Fibre Solutions in Penrose, has also threatened to close, which would result in 75 job cuts.

The four semi-privatised energy companies—Meridian, Mercury, Genesis and Contact (fully privatised in 1999)—meanwhile made a combined $NZ512.4 million in profits since July 1. According to Newsroom, since the privatisations began the companies paid out $10.8 billion in dividends to shareholders, while total generating capacity increased by just one percent.

Young people are bearing the brunt of the escalating jobs crisis. Those aged between 15 and 24 make up almost half of the newly unemployed. Aaron Hendry of youth charity Kick Back told RNZ there are widespread feelings of “hopelessness.” When young people do get jobs, he said, they are more likely to be insecure, with worse conditions than those of older workers.

The deepening joblessness crisis is a product of deliberate policies of the ruling elite to make the working class bear the brunt of the crisis of capitalism. Drastic austerity measures are being imposed along with increased military spending, as New Zealand is integrated more closely into US-led imperialist operations against Russia, China and in the Middle East.

The Reserve Bank reduced the official cash rate (OCR) by 0.25 percent to 5.25 percent on August 14, after official annual inflation slowed to 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024 from 4 percent. It was the first cut to the OCR since March 2020. Rates had progressively risen from 0.25 percent three years ago, when inflation was running at 7.3 percent.

The central bank’s stated aim was to engineer a recession using high interest rates to drive up unemployment and put downward pressure on wages. Private sector wages rose just 3.6 percent in the 12 months to June, well below the 5.4 percent increase in household living costs. Average wages are forecast to rise in real terms by just 0.2 percent over the next year.

Public sector wages rose 6.9 percent in the same period, only marginally ahead of inflation, following years of effective pay freezes enforced by the trade union bureaucracy.

The National Party-ACT-NZ First coalition government has now launched a scorched earth assault on jobs and services across the public sector. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has imposed ruthless funding cuts of 7.5 percent across most ministries. Since January over 6,500 jobs have been axed.

Health NZ is calling on administrative workers to volunteer for redundancy as the government seeks to slash $1.4 billion and 2,500 jobs in the grossly understaffed public health system by 2025. The Aotearoa NZ national committee of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons has warned that waiting times for surgeries will inevitably continue to blow out.

The assault on public sector jobs is rippling through the private sector, particularly in the capital, Wellington. Two popular bars in the capital’s entertainment strip, Rubix and SugarWoods, have closed down, and an up-market restaurant, Concord, is also about to shut its doors, further fueling warnings that Wellington is becoming a “ghost town.”

Public sector cuts and deferred private sector investment have had a significant impact on IT revenues. The major IT and telecommunications company Spark is planning to cut its labour costs by $50 million (10 percent) in the current financial year, with job losses in the hundreds looming. Profits fell 72 percent to $316 million for the year to June. Spark’s 5,291 staff is already down by 141 from last year.

Growing numbers of people are emigrating in search of work. In the year to June, 131,200 people departed New Zealand, the highest annual figure on record.

Commenting on the wave of job losses, NZ Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney wrote on X/Twitter that the government “should be taking urgent action to get ahead of what could become a much deeper crisis.… Right now there is no plan.”

The trade unions, however, have made clear that they will do nothing to defend any jobs. Far from mobilising an industrial and political campaign across the working class, they are enforcing the cuts, including by corralling workers behind whatever paltry exit provisions may be on offer as they are ushered out the doors.

The Public Service Association and E tū, the principal unions in the public sector, have channeled widespread opposition into the legal system claiming that the sackings have been executed outside employment contract provisions. These legal cases change nothing: the sackings still proceed but now with the collaboration of union bureaucrats who ensure that the correct “process” is followed, while each group of workers is kept isolated from others.

There is deep hostility and anger over the government’s attack on the social position of working people and its billions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich. When Willis presented the budget in May, thousands protested in major centres and outside parliament.

The Labour Party and its allies, however, do not have any fundamental differences with the government’s agenda. Labour governed in coalition with the right-wing nationalist NZ First from 2017‒2020, and with the Greens from 2020‒2023. During these six years Labour-led governments produced a further increase in social inequality, poverty and homelessness while public services were starved of funds.

Labour contested the 2023 election promising to slash public service budgets by up to 4 percent—a proposal which was praised as “a prudent move to tighten the belt” by Public Service Association leader Duane Leo in a Radio NZ interview in August last year. Labour also made clear that it supports billions more in military spending, which is being funded at the expense of social programs.