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I don't think that anyone who has been paying attention to events in Christchurch could seriously have expected the city to host a major sporting event like the RWC within a few short months. The city is trashed, the stadium is trashed, no one can…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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There's been increasing concern over the past week or two that not only has the government failed to communicate its plan for the Christchurch recovery, it doesn't actually have one, and isn't particularly concerned about getting one. Yesterday in the House, Labour took Key to…
crime Economy im/migration john key labour national Parliament phil goff
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Sometimes we take comments here and put them up as posts. Here's one from long time contributor vto: How much can people take when it comes to one disaster after another? A venture into the CBD to check on some decades of work brought an…
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No Right Turn says all that is required on another of Nationals aspirational failures. For the past year, the government has been talking a lot about "boosting science and innovation" as the "keys to economic growth". Today, we saw the reality behind that talk, with news that…
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3-time election loser Don Brash spoke at the ACT conference on the weekend. It was an attempt to revive the Owera days with an anti-Maori speech. When he made a 'they don't know how lucky they are' reference to how Australians used to "shoot the…
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For the second time in 14 years, the Saudi monarchy has sent troops into Bahrain to crush protests by the Shi'ite majority against the Sunni monarchy. Having intimidated their own people into silence on Friday, the Saudis now want to bring the Bahraini Shi'ites to…
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So, how are you enjoying your brighter future? Not too flash, eh? GST up. Wages down. No jobs. More crime. Earthquakes. Oil and food shocks. No bloody cycleway. Discretionary income (after tax, housing, food, transport) is down about 15%. No wonder Kiwis don't believe Key…
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Hone Hariwira will win his electorate in 2011, and if at that time he is a member of the much touted new Left party then it may be that other MPs will follow him in to Parliament. Yesterday Phil Goff ruled out working with such…
election 2011 foreshore and seabed labour maori party phil goff
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Forty two Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) workers left New Zealand this morning for Japan. Straight off the back of three hard weeks in the rubble of Christchurch, they are flying in to help out with an even bigger disaster. Just as the world rallied…
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The destruction wrought by the 9.0 Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami is truly appalling. Untold lives have been lost. Thousands of square kilometres were obliterated by the water which swept up to 20km inland. The death toll officially stands at 1,000-2,000 but it must really be…
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Here's the kind of headline you really really don't want to wake up to: Japan on brink of nuclear meltdown Desperate attempts are being made to cool a Japanese nuclear power plant crippled by the country's huge earthquake and tsunami - but indications are that…
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So, the other day I was arguing something around $100 a barrel oil equals a global recession. I wanted to get more precise: is there a certain price of petrol in New Zealand, above which the economy goes into recession? It turns out there is,…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Stung by Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee's admission that the eastern suburbs had been neglected after the Christchurch Earthquake, John Key is redoubling his efforts: "For the first few days, I stuck my head down and got on with designing the emergency benefit policy but,…
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Apropos of nothing in particular, one of my favourite poems: BLAZING FRUIT (or The Role of the Poet as Entertainer) by Roger McGough During dinner the table caught fire. No one alluded to the fact and we ate on, regardless of the flames singeing our…
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Gerry Brownlee promised the West Coast a stimulus package. "The government" has now ruled that out. John Key never fronts bad news (see: Christchurch's hopes of still hosting RWC games) to keep his nice-guy persona shiny, but in this case no-one wants to front it.…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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The Sendai Earthquake cut the power supply to the pumps at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. With no cooling water being pumped through the reactors, the nuclear fuel rods heated themselves until reactor 1 melted. But it should have been OK. The containment building should have…
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A comment from a foreign national in Japan caught my attention last night. She was a language teacher in a school and remarked that she was in the safest possible building as schools in Japan have extra earthquake reinforcement, ie over and above the building…
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Faced with the choice between short-term stability offered by a military strong-man or the long-term stability that would emerge from a democratic revolution, the West has long backed dictators in key resource supplying third-world nations. As the West backs away from saving the Libyan rebellion,…
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The government has released 8 papers on its view on a 30-year blueprint for Auckland. The plan isn't to be released for another 11 days, but National are impolitely putting its view out first. And what a twentieth-century view it is. One of an ever…
auckland supercity public transport same old national transport
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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A 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake has struck just off the coast of northeastern Japan. At a depth of just 24km and only 60km offshore, it released 8,000 times more energy than the second Christchurch earthquake. The Kurihara seismic station recorded a 7 on the destructiveness scale,…
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In the UK they have a referendum in May as to whether to keep First Past the Post, or move to Australian-style Preferential Voting (or as they call it "Alternative Vote"). Here's a quirky explanation of the problems with FPP using members of the animal…
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As we wait to see what Saudi Arabia's 'Day of Rage' will bring and if it will send oil prices into the stratosphere, some economists, including our Reserve Bank Governor, are trying to pretend we're not in the midst of an oil shock and there…
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Apparently Christchurch Labour MPs will be putting out their bulletin daily. Here's the second update from Clayton Cosgrove (Waimakariri), Ruth Dyson (Port Hills), Lianne Dalziel (Christchurch East) and Brendon Burns (Christchurch Central). In future you can get to them here. CLAYTON COSGROVE: This morning Christchurch…
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Last National government: split Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. This National government: merge Agriculture and Fisheries. In times of economic recession and disaster National know the really important things to focus on - like changing the titles of departments. Just as long as they keep…