The genius of Labour's (not yet official) capital gains tax is not just the policy itself but the way it has picked the public mood. Support has been near-universal. The Left loves the fairness aspect - workers won't be subsidising landlords anymore. The Right loves the…
Paul "cheeky darkie" Holmes is at it again: No place here for burqa To hell with the burqa. No Paul, to hell with racists. It has no place here. This is my considered opinion after giving the matter extensive thought. This is Paul's considered opinion…
Yesterday, hundreds of parents protested cuts to early childhood education on Queen St and gave Phil Goff a 60,000 signature petition to take to Wellington. 1000 people in the Octagon called on the government to consider Kiwi jobs when awarding contracts. What is wrong with…
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English's Budget that counted asset sale revenue but not costs appears to be part of a wider maths problem for our Finance Minister. Perhaps this explains the Double Dipton affair.
It's a big call, I know, but I'm pretty sure we're seeing the end of the ACT party happening right before our eyes. Let me be clear, I don't mean the end in a shifted-so-far-from-their-values-it's-as-if-they-are-gone way and I don't mean in a taken-over-by-the-National-Party way. I…
The Independent asks "Is this Britain's Watergate? In the article: "At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Cameron defended his decision to appoint Mr Coulson but admitted his relationship with senior members of the Murdoch empire had been too close. "The deeper truth is this...…
A very interesting report appeared in yesterday's NZ Medical Journal, as reported by The Herald here: Raise super age, doctors say Doctors are calling for higher family welfare benefits and taking GST off healthy food - with the extra costs funded by raising the retirement…
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...
Tipped off by robertguyton in comments I see that DPF has posted the following little gem at Kiwiblog: Kiwiblog Outage Kiwiblog will be off air this Sunday between 6 am and midday approx. The server it is on is being cleaned and moved. Now, cleaning…
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?
It has been a rare and sincere pleasure to see National walk straight into a trap carefully laid by Labour. Goff and his team haven't even publicly confirmed their capital gains tax policy but proponents to the Left and Right are winning the pre-launch media…
Vote for Change, Peter Shirtcliffe's anti-MMP vehicle a grassroots movement discussing the need for change in the electoral system, has launched an ad competition for their movement. There's $10,000 in prizes. I guess they raised the money from cake stalls. Naturally, the Standardistas encourage you…
We tend to get very wrapped up in our own world here in NZ. Same old voices running the same old lines round and round in circles until we're all dizzy and just a little bit nauseous. Sometimes it's good to hop off the merry-go-round…
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The phone-hacking story in England is not only out from under the carpet - it has gone ballistic. Fresh allegations are surfacing hourly, and it gets worse - now there are allegations of the phones of families of slain soldiers being hacked. Rupert Murdoch has…
Stolen without permission from the Tertiary Education Union (here) - but I pays my dues so I figure they wont mind. -- r0b Te Tai Poutini Polytechnic is receiving an additional $750 million funding from Minister Steven Joyce after changing its name to the South…
The landlords' lobby group is making a lot of noise over Labour's, still unannounced, capital gains policy. They claim that rents will go up, the supply of housing will fall, and it won't stop house prices bubbles. Let's examine those claims. A 2003 study showed…
http://youtu.be/bEWgRtIoLWo An alert reader sent us this video of Wayne Mapp swaying, slurring and rambling his way through Question Time. Lockwood Smith had to interrupt him several times before he became completely incoherent. Was he drunk? It's hard to explain his behaviour otherwise. PS. What's…
The right's leadership resembles a merry go round of disgraced old white failures. Brash, English, Shirtcliffe, Douglas had their time at the front, were disgraced. Now they're back. Thompson was fired for his appalling behaviour but got a payout. He'll be back in due course.…
Notice how a single announcement (not even officially made) from the opposition Labour Party has generated more interest, excitement and reaction than the last (Sub-Zero) budget? More excitement, in fact, than anything the National government has done in the last three wasted years? The Herald…
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...
There can't be many Kiwis who don't know about the leaky homes crisis. The last National government deregulated the building industry. Bad idea. Cowboy companies used bad materials and bad designs to build thousands of houses that leak and rot. It's a problem worth up…
I feel sorry for Bernadette Courtney, current editor at the DomPost. The paper's getting slimmer by the day and it's comment pages suffer from a surfeit of ex-editors. We're used to Richard Long in his weekly role as a National Party adviser but this Tuesday's…
A conservative council in the UK sacked it's entire workforce and offered them their jobs again the next day if they accepted a 5.4% pay cut. This is direct fallout from the Global Financial Crisis of course - that monumental greed-made disaster caused by bankers…
It puzzles me that the Nats have any female supporters. The Nats are no friends to women. During their three year term they have scrapped the Department of Labour’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit (PaEE), and killed off investigations aimed at improving the pay of…