This casino capitalist must go

You can only gamble for so long before your luck runs out. When it does you can lose everything. Whole economies wiped out, eco-systems destroyed, or countries ruined.

The Rena catastrophe is getting worse by the hour and PM John Key, once considered untouchable by the media is now under considerable criticism for his handling of this crisis. The casino capitalist turned Prime Minister has now ruined the Bay of Plenty because of his gamble on the odds of the weather getting worse.

John Key had five days of good weather to get the oil of the Rena with barges that were on offer to Maritime New Zealand:

It emerged yesterday that on the day the Rena struck the reef, Maritime NZ declined an offer of two inflatable barges which could pump up to 100 tonnes of oil at a time.

The offer was made by Ronald Winstone, of Lancer Industries, who said the two barges would have easily emptied the ship of toxic oil in the four days of clear weather after the Rena ran aground.

"It would have taken them 17 trips to pump all the fuel off the ship and three or four days wouldn't have been unrealistic for that to have happened.

"It doesn't make sense why they didn't start pumping the oil earlier when they had the equipment to do it."

A Maritime NZ spokesman said Mr Winstone's offer was logged with its operations division, and "if they needed it they would have followed it up".

Now the situation is getting worse and still the Government squanders time and energy. Labour leader Phil Goff is on the beach, calling for volunteers to defy the Government and join the clean up. Mana candidate for Waiariki, Annette Sykes will lead a group of Mana Movement volunteers onto the Tauranga beaches tomorrow to join the clean up.

The root cause of this disaster is the deregulation of the coastal shipping industry. But what has turned this disaster into a catastrophe has been the environmental recklessness of the National Party that has characterised their party's policies from climate change and Canterbury's rivers to Auckland's inner city rail loop. When the chips are down, Key will choose protecting corporate wealth over the environment and people every time. They are killing Aotearoa. Our streams and rivers are polluted, our air is toxic, our National Parks are at risk of being pillaged, our biosphere is being degraded and now our seas are being despoiled.

John Key must go. Key is a casino capitalist transformed into a smiling puppet of corporate interests who has viciously used state power to attack workers, beneficiaries, students, teachers, the disabled, prisoners, Maori, internet freedom and public services. Meanwhile our SAS are being needlessly killed in the US's imperialist occupation of Afghanistan so our farmers can get a free trade deal that will give unprecedented power to corporations to sue our government.

It is never the casino capitalists who have to live with the consequences of their banditry. Banks that collapse, finance companies that fail they all get bailed out with state money. When the odds run short for workers, we lose everything and lives and communities ruined.

Next he wants to loot the country of its assets by selling off our electricity companies and Air New Zealand and he is no doubt hoping he can turn New Zealand back into a two party state again. He even lies to the media over the downgrading of New Zealand's credit rating, he does fuck all about 155,000 unemployed and 200,000 kids in poverty and the gives the rich $16 billion in tax cuts while increasing GST. But why would those things worry someone who lives in a $7 million mansion? The reality is the millionaire Prime Minister in his Summer Palace doesn't give a damn about New Zealand or the people in it.

We need to bring down this National government and its smiling assassin before they do any further damage to Aotearoa.

On Saturday we will be on the streets of every city and the world will hear our anger and pain at what is happening in our country, "When Aotearoa is under attack? Stand up! Fight back!"

John Key must go.

-Socialist Aotearoa