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Grant Robertson and David Cunliffe will be talking environment & economy at Titirangi tomorrow. It'll be interesting to watch how Labour positions itself on this pivotal question vis-a-vis the Greens. So far we haven't really seen much of Labour on the environment. The Greens have…
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Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here. One of the biggest drawbacks of our democratic system is that it encourages politicking. This is a problem because whenever a major issue is before…
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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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Major changes in the media in Oz will have their impact here - some already have. Fairfax's mastheads the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age are going tabloid, cutting staff, and putting up paywalls on their websites. Gina Rinehart, the world's richest woman has bought…
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One of the things that has struck me about the Bronwyn Pullar debacle has been the difficulty she has had with the ACC despite having five-star political connections and supporters with education, savvy, and money. Imagine how the other 99% of claimants get on. Frankly…
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When the government is hooting and hollering over 1.7% annual growth, it's time to admit we've entered a new paradigm. In the past, you would have expected 4-5% growth coming out of a recession. Now, anything above the rate of population growth is treated as…
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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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Another safety warning in today's DomPost met National Ministerial indifference - shades of Kate Wilkinson and Pike River. Headlined "Truckies fear all roads lead to disaster," Jon Morgan's story starts off: It's the horror crash that will send shocking pictures of rural New Zealand flashing…
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"Trasher" Tolley? "Crusher" Collins? Oh please. Why the need to try and dress these popinjays up with tough sounding nicknames? So now the first car has been crushed, and I find that I must agree with this expert: Car crushing 'discredits law' - expert However,…
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It looks like the Nats' attempt to pull a swindle on the meaning of "51% ownership" has been averted. For those who haven't been following the story, the Nats have, of course, promised to retain 51% government ownership of the state-owned assets they are partially…
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So, not only is defence force morale at an all-time low, but now it seems the police are planning a possible protest march: Police could take action over pay The ‘zero Budget’ could see another angry crowd marching on Parliament, but this time it's the…
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To paraphrase Mr Wilde, losing 1 board member looks unfortunate, but losing 4 & a CEO looks like a minister losing control of her portfolio. As much as the botox allows, Collins didn't look happy when board member number 4 quit. But mama said never…
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So, National expects 200,000 people to buy shares when it hocks off our assets. Call me simple but there's 4.4 million of us, 3.3 million adults. Seems like nearly all of us won't buy shares. But here's the real rub: they're talking about a bonus…
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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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A draft agreement has been negotiated for the Rio+20 summit that starts today, but anyone who cares about the future of our planet should be disappointed. The expert panel of nobel laureates, scientists and ministers' call to 'seize the moment' has largely gone unheeded, as…
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Full data set It's pretty straightforward: private investors have a higher cost of capital so they need bigger profits? How do you make bigger profits in the electricity game when all your capital costs are fixed and your fuel is either free or internationally priced?…
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Darkhorse writes amazingly insightful economic pieces on his 'How Daft' blog (the title gives you a clue as to what he thinks of the current state of affairs). The neoliberal experiment has been an abject failure by any rational measure. And there are alternatives. Darkhorse…
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The Nats' latest defence of asset sales is 'if Labour doesn't say they'll buy them back,then they secretly agree with the sales'. Well, we would all like Labour to be able to make that commitment but, in the real world, that would be irresponsible (as…
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So, National is using a Public Private Partnership to build a school in Hobsonville. You've heard of PPPs. They, like all privatisation, are billed as somehow unleashing the magic of the market to reduce costs. But the reality is they turn the taxpayer into a…
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Bill English has attacked the MED numbers showing that private electricity companies are 12% more expensive than public ones saying that argument assumes "that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are systematically paying more for electricity than they could?". Um... Has English heard of Powerswitch?…
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National put out a couple of bizarre press releases saying "remember when..." and recounting the asset sales under the 4th Labour Government. Apparently, the fact that they fucked up is reason for National to fuck up now. Well, remember when asset sales erned Labour a…
accountability assets labour national privatisation scoundrels
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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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The Herald reports that Tony Ryall "went on the attack about asset sales outside the House, saying that Labour had a history of privatising state owned assets, often doing so under urgency in Parliament back in the 1980s and early 90s." Ryall was elected to…
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Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here. Few people would be surprised to learn that the budget surplus we were promised again and again now looks to be only a distant hope.…
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Independent energy analyst Molly Melhuish is putting out some facts that Tony Ryall will not find comfortable. While Ryall is spouting that 400,000 New Zealanders switching electricity provider proves that the market is working, Molly points out that we pay on average 28.1c per kWh…
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h/t deuto
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So National are shelving their plan to get out of deficit by 2014/15. Which was their only goal left. They'd shelved stopping the exodus to Australia, stopping high unemployment, getting better public services, fixing our current account deficit, returning to growth, proper ECE funding (and…
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John Key wants to debate school league tables. Presumably he thinks that this will do the double whammy of getting middle class parents back on his side in the education debate, and distract from asset sales. But he's not checked with his Minister, or the…
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The last time Treasury did an economic and fiscal update outside of its use two-per-year schedule, was December 2008, the depth of the recession. So, it's telling that, just 4 weeks after the Budget, Treasury is looking at doing a revision of its numbers. One…