I don't know what's worse. Watching Trevor Mallard engage in amateur clap-trap like this or the fact the Labour caucus has decided a man with judgement this poor should run their campaign. When I heard Trevor had decided to bike-race National's muckslinger in an election…
Study proves that our 'wealth creators' are actually bad managers. We have the natural resources. Got the skilled workforce. We're held back by the capitalist elite. Not interested in capital investment and paying better wages. They're just rentiers out to extract quick profits: a formula…
National's David Carter says that you're a racist for not wanting to sell our assets to foreigners, particularly Chinese state-owned companies. It's not racism. It's about our sovereignty. We are never going to be able to choose our way in the world if we sell…
Here was Agriculture Minister David Carter on Q+A yesterday on whether National would bring agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme: CARTER We’ve signalled that we’re doing it in 2015. We’ve signalled we’ll do a review prior to that to make sure that there are feasible…
John Key likes to tell people what they want to hear. He's less good at keeping his word afterwards. This story appeared in The Press on Saturday: PM sidesteps quake promise Prime Minister John Key is refusing to reveal what assurances he gave grieving families…
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Next week, a report will reveal the abuse of 2,500 foreign workers used as virtual slaves on ships employed by kiwi fishing quota holders in our waters. New Zealand has a rich nautical history, world-leading boat-builders, and large fisheries. By rights, we should have a…
Like the American debt limit deal, I always thought that Mana and Maori would find some kind of bloody compromise at the eleventh hour. It is so obviously in the best interests of the two to cooperate. But they've passed the point of no return…
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...
Remember the fuss when Brownlee appointed Jenny Shipley and other cronies to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Review Panel at triple the normal pay rate? Brownlee tried to justify it by saying that "it will not be possible to secure their services under the current fees…
If some poor bugger was found, more dead than alive and smothered in leeches, whatever the cure, it wouldn't be to replace any satiated and detached leeches with fresh ones now, would it? Yet that seems to be the 'cure' for the productive economy being…
January 2009. Jobs are being lost at 4,000 per week. Key and his government have just come back from a month long holiday. First thing he does: makes an audition tape for Letterman. Notice how all the jokes are taking the mickey out of our…
The global financial system, which has never properly recovered from the recession, is poised on the brink of a second crash. The immediate trigger seems to be the fiasco in America over raising the debt ceiling. The whole process revealed the growing power (and lunacy)…
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...
BBC Radio 4 in the UK has a very interesting debate pitting followers of Keynes vs those of Hayek available at: podcast Being the LSE there are quite a few Hayekians in the audience for riposte. The debater's arguments from both sides are stimulating -…
About 600 Otago students turned out this morning (with Dunedin North MP Pete Hodgson) to meet John Key in protest to the VSM bill. Good to see a strong show of support for student unions! There's a press release about the protest here, and a…
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?
Fisheries workers bearing a 12,000 signature told a select committee yesterday the horror stories of abuse of foreign workers on fishing vessels, whose low wages displace Kiwi workers, how the focus on low-cost, low-quality that is wasting our fish stocks, and how this is caused…
Adidas was founded by a Nazi who lied that his own brother was SS to get him in deeper trouble when the brother was captured by the US. That cut-throat attitude persists. I don't know why people want to wear All Blacks shirts. Adult equivalent…
National pollster David Farrar wants scientists to debate a fake Lord climate change denier saying "Why should anyone listen to people unwilling to debate?". Well, David, next time you're giving your polling report to the Kitchen Cabinet, tell them that. Because National is refusing to…
Could somebody please nip outside and check and see if hell has frozen over? I ask because I'm trying to deal with the rather disturbing experience of finding myself in agreement with Garth George. Well, mostly in agreement, George clearly doesn't understand the American deficit.…
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Who cares whether or not the SIS briefed Phil Goff over whether or not some Israelis were Mossad? What does interest me it this: Secretive SIS denied Fairfax a copy of the briefing paper on the non-agents. Days later it magics up a copy of…
KAL (the cartoonist for The Economist) expresses my feelings about the political process over the last couple of months in the US. Their Washington correspondent after looking at the detail of the eventual 'solution' concludes with In the end, hopes for a grand bargain that…
The Parliamentary exchange relating to the magazine ad is here: Hon Annette King: Can he remember advertising in the Grey Power magazine recently, stating “We’re working for you. Security. Well-being. Respect.”; if so, does that respect include listening to, and acting on, the advice of…
It looks like the race for Epsom is about to get a whole lot more exciting. Former ACT funder Colin Craig seems set to throw his hat into the ring against ACT's John Banks, National's Paul Goldsmith, and Labour's David Parker. It only needs Winnie…
The Greens have launched their policy to get 100,000 kids out of poverty. It'll cost just 0.3% of GDP. We have a moral duty to do what we can to eliminate child poverty. Labour made a start. WFF basically ended working poverty. But there's the…
Good to see the government considering a move that would significantly boost KiwisSaver uptake: KiwiSaver auto-enrolment: the new election issue The Government is pushing policies that could see up to a million New Zealanders automatically enrolled in Kiwisaver, and the superannuation scheme is shaping up…
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...