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Leader of the opposition John Key in 2008: Tomorrow, Helen Clark will tell us what she thinks about the state of our nation. In all likelihood, she'll remind us how good she thinks we've got it, how grateful she thinks we should be to Labour,…
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An anonymous editorial in The Herald earlier this week was remarkable for two things. First for clear and succinct way it summarised some interesting data relating to educational outcomes, and second for the way that it absolutely failed to understand the meaning of that data.…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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I've long held to the principle of owning your mistakes and as such I've gotta say I was wrong about one aspect of the "stop asset sales" campaign - the signs are authorised. That said they still risk running across transport laws. Which means, to…
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Weekend social is for non political chat. What's on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can't we all just get along?
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I heard David Cunliffe on Morning Report on Tuesday, and he was superb. But as soon as he finished I knew the Right would try to deflect from the substance by writing it off as leadership ambitions. And sure enough we have Audrey Young, making…
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The Nats' attack on early childhood education (ECE) is starting to bite. As surely as night follows day, the cuts in funding for childcare centres are showing up as increased costs for parents. This graph is based on CPI data from Statistics NZ. The y-axis…
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Key's helicopter rides. Huge waste of money for what? A V8 photo-op then a golf club dinner. Why are we paying this guy $7750 a week to do nothing but photo ops? Where's the recovery package for the West Coast? Where's the Chch plan? Where's…
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Expansionary austerity is the idea that cutbacks in government spending can stimulate economic growth. Sounds weird doesn't it, but here's the theory as argued by Britain's current Chancellor of the Exchequer: Osborne insists that Britain will enjoy what he calls "expansionary austerity", because the knowledge…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Asset sales. Nobody likes them (except the few elites who stand to gain from them) which means stopping asset sale is a good thing right? Right. Unless you decide to go about doing so in a way that potentially infringes on traffic law and on…
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A while ago Irish wrote a post about right whingers: the poor wee fullas who aren't happy to simply take a bigger and bigger share of the pie but want to cash in on grievance as well. It seems National's blogger David Farrar didn't get…
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Bernard Hickey speaks about “The Plan for the Productive Economy” Venue: Ellen Melville Hall, High Street, Auckland. Time: 6:30pm, Thursday 21 April.
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The Family Court as far as I'm concerned is the only court that tries to act as the gate before the cliff, rather than the grave digger at the bottom. Even the youth court usually winds up as merely a ambulance driver. Families, when they…
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I was going to write on this, but as is often the case, I/S has already said it far better. -- r0b Earlier in the month, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment called bullshit on the government's "20% by 2020" target, pointing out that under…
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Rex Widerstrom has been a commentator and occassional guest poster here for a while. He has a unique point of view on the political process and its place in society that you can also see at his blog Shift Focus. In this guest post he…
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The government's books are tight. We shouldn't borrow more, so there need to be reversals of the tax cuts and spending cuts. What matters is what is cut - all cuts are not the same. I'd like to see the $110 billion dollars of subsidies…
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John Key will wear a bespoke New Zealand-made suit at the royal wedding woven from merino and washed with pounamu (greenstone)... Mr Biddick was coy about the details of the suit and said he could not reveal what colour tie Mr Key would wear or…
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Once upon a time John Key was promising great things to the "underclass", and to New Zealanders in general. But now that he's in government he reckons that he can't help after all: Key: We can't help your price pain Prime Minister John Key yesterday…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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I want to write a review of "Operation 8: Deep in the Forest", but also just some thoughts on some of the criticisms and reviews of the film which relate to issues involved in the case. Last night walking into the film screening in Auckland…
activism books film human rights law law and "order" Maori Issues Media police racism Spying suppression orders
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No Right Turn put up this post on the latest in the police foulup that is Operation 8. According to Stuff, the Urewera 18 are seeking leave to appeal the decision to deny them a jury trial to the Supreme Court. Good. Trial by jury is a…
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Recently Irish Bill wrote on the Nats' dilemma in Epsom. Throw a lifeline to the execrable Rodney Hide and his party of loons, or the riskier option of winning Epsom for themselves and doing without the baggage of ACT. Looks like the deal is now…
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John Key is adept at being economical with the truth. Read his latest spin where he attempts to blame Labour for National's continuing to shovel our money into South Canterbury Finance: The reason we're in this position is Labour signed up to a deposit guarantee…
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Paula Bennett says working in a soup kitchen for two days reminded her of her solo mum days. Of course, that was before she, um, fell in with Murray McCully and somehow ended up minister responsible for $22 billion a year, where she proceeded to…
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Former senior Labour party strategist John Pagani has written an extraordinary blog post where he says Labour ought to cuddle up to National because its policies are so popular and then, somehow, convince people to vote Labour for some reason. If this has been Labour's…
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The Kiwi expat association Kea has initiated an interesting project: “Census” of overseas New Zealanders under way Kea New Zealand has launched a global ‘census’ of expatriate New Zealanders, Every Kiwi Counts, aimed at connecting the estimated one million Kiwis living overseas. “New Zealanders living…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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This weekend just gone there was a conference in Wellington for Labour candidates to get us all up to speed with the campaign. We're ready to go. As a first time candidate, it was extremely useful to learn from some of the more experienced campaigners;…
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