Japanese Parliament Rejects Privatisation

On Monday the Japanese Upper House voted against plans to privatise the postal service, causing the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koiizumi, to call an election. Japan Post employs over 400,000 people and has about 24,700 outlets. Good to see some politicians standing up to New Right reforms. It was reported that what the Upper House was voting against wasn't just the privatisation of the postal service but the whole proposed programme for economic reform.

Interestingly the foreign correspondent on National Radio's Worldwatch programme yesterday evening remarked that privatising Japan Post would probably have little effect on the average Japanese person. How out of touch! She needed to be in New Zealand just after the splitting up and corporatisation of the New Zealand Post Office, when we had closures of hundreds of Post Offices. Maybe Japan Post is already corporatised.

While on privatising postal services, did anyone notice the partial sale of New Zealand Post's courier business? NZ Post has created a joint venture with DHL (Germany's State-owned postal service) whereby each owns a half share in what were NZ Post's courier subsidiaries. Didn't Labour promise that there would be no major State asset sales? This is like selling half of Kiwibank to the ANZ or the Bank of England!

Congratulations to the National Party for showing its true colours again - this time over immigration. This is yet another parallel between this election and the 1975 General Election. Remember Muldoon? Remember dawn raids? More on this later.

Your Comments