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Pausing for a moment from the steamroller of local politics - here we have some of the significant moments of the last nine years, courtesy of the Guardian. They've put together these images of the '00's. What would a Kiwi version look like?
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Today hundreds of people around the country marched against the cuts to sexual abuse counselling due to be implemented by ACC next week. The protests were widely covered by the media, with excellent coverage by both TVNZ and 3News. I was at the Auckland march…
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Wellington's Drinking Liberally speaker is Celia Wade-Brown. Celia is a sitting Green member of the Wellington City Council, and one of the first announced candidates for the Wellington Mayoralty. With the recent changes to the local governance of Auckland, resulting into amalgamation into a "super-city" -…
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Last Thursday, Colin Espiner was mocking all of us who said that National and other rightwing groups were trying to create a sense of crisis around ACC to soften us up for privatisation: "That somehow this is all just a VRWC* to derail the ACC,…
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Last week, David Parker asked Nick Smith what the "whole-of-life cost to ACC of all new claims" for the last year were. Smith's answer surprised everyone because it made no sense. He told us that claims made last year alone would cost $7 billion over…
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A fascinating interview with the Sir Owen Woodhouse in the Herald today. Sir Owen has led an amazing life - after helping supply Yugoslav partisans fighting the Nazis, he rose through the ranks of our judiciary becoming a Privy Councillor and President of the Court of Appeal, and…
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The current National led government clearly regards the processes of democracy is an inconvenience to which it must pay lip service, but nothing more. The first signs appeared very early, with repeated abuse of the mechanism of urgency. This got to the point that even…
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We're trying a daily "Open mike". This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you...
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As I scanned the stuff website I came across the latest TV3 poll results. Scarcely what I'd regard as cheerful Sunday night reading (National on 59.9%, Labour 27.2%, Greens 6.9% ). But upon reading Duncan Garner's blog I decided that while the sea change might…
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The Sunday Star-Times details hitherto secret proposals from the John Judge-chaired ACC to cut back entitlements and increase user-pays. The hidden agenda: Introduce a $100 excess on every claim. Reduce income compensation from 80% to 70% after one year and 60% after two. Impose a…
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Two readers offer their reflections on our collective reaction to the Aisling Symes tragedy: The Best of Us, The Worst of Us, revealed in Aisling Symes Tragedy Sadly the body of Aisling Symes has been discovered and the means of her tragic death are understood.…
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I think I might have joined the dots in what it is that is causing me such unease about the arrival of Crime Stoppers. Sure, there's the whole 'Big Brother' thing as citizens are rewarded for anonymously spying on their neighbours, colleagues and team mates,…
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Len Brown seems to have the Right in a bit of panic. Remuera Mayor John ‘in your guts you know he's nuts' Banks is speculating that Brown's already toted up $150-$200k of campaign spending. Banks has always been screwy but he seems to have just…
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[Pulling the following comment from Toad in Open Mike up to the front page.] If you are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin tomorrow, please try to find the time to support the protests against ACC's proposed cuts to sexual abuse cover and therapy. There…
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I had a free education. Most of the politicians in this and recent parliaments had a free education. More recent students have not been so lucky. Student loans are a 10 Billion dollar burden on the young. It's crazy - the state spends all this…
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We're trying a daily "Open mike". This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you...
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The Guardian reports today under the headline "Crisis looms in Kabul over Karzai election results:" Frantic diplomacy under way as report looks set to give Afghan president less than 50% of the vote, forcing run-off. Karzai's share of the vote is expected to drop to…
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If we're to believe National's version of events, Pita Sharples kept secret from his colleagues that he was going to take $3 million from a contestable Te Puni Kokiri (TPK) fund meant for job initiatives and give it to Maori TV (MTS) to subsidise their World…
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Fran O'Sullivan's piece today tries to resurrect the 'Key=Obama' line for some reason. She even refers to Obama as Key's 'alter ego'. I'm not quite sure she understands what the term means. Alter egos are like ying and yang, contrasting parts of the same whole.…
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Last night on TV3's 7 Days panelist Jeremy Elwood described John Key as "New Zealand's very own Ned Flanders without a moustache." Ned's a pretty complex character, with quite a lot of suppressed rage and a dark side that makes his hyper-cheerful niceness actually more…
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Key looks like a PM under pressure. He's started lashing out at random - never a good sign. It happened while discussing Melissa Lee's repayment of $80,000 of taxpayer's money that she had somehow managed to forget that she had. (Yes I know - that…
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We're trying a daily "Open mike". This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you...
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I've been meaning to post on the emergence of Crimestoppers in New Zealand for a few days now. While some might say it's a nasty and divisive idea funded by a dodgy Tory and likely to encourage a fascistic culture of mistrust if anyone ever…
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Hundreds of hospitals workers from all over the country took protest action against National's wage freeze today. Here's a photo from the picket line: The workers passed a resolution calling for a 24 hour mass protest stoppage in November involving as many public sector workers…
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While we're all aghast over Nick Smith's shambolic handling of ACC and his 'people are killing themselves for cash' comments, let's not forget he's also making a total botch up of climate change policy too. As Marty discovered, National's ETS will cost us $73 billion…
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Police have ended their investigation in National MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi's immigration scam after the principal accuser left the country in mysterious circumstances. In Parliament, Pete Hodgson read a sworn statement by Darshan Singh Saran which says that Bakshi and his associates were involved first…
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The other day on Red Alert, Chris Hipkins related an interesting story about how National's last round of State House sales went awry: Recently I went to visit a state house tenant in their home to talk about some problems they had been having with…
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The Herald posts this clip from Parliament entitled "Nick Smith under fire for ACC bungling". Nice catch from Darren Hughes at the end. What a shambolic lot.
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The other day, John Key said "ACC's investment portfolio had not been working well". Now, if there's one golden rule regarding people with power it's never take what they say for granted. And that's never been more true than with this Prime Minister. So, I…
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One of the most dishonest, yet most successful tactics of National in opposition was to rant on and on about the "Nanny state". Here's John Key fairly foaming at the mouth: I've had nine years of being told what lightbulb I can screw into the…