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There's been a bit of coverage of this development at The Green Party conference: Greens launch attack on Bennett and Key The Green Party has ramped up its personality politics, directly accusing Paula Bennett and Prime Minister John Key of stripping away the welfare and…
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I'm not a big fan of the whole honours system, with or without knighthoods. But if you're going to have it, make it mean something. Giving the top gong, which only 20 living people can have, to a guy whose claim to fame is marrying…
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We all know National is on a record borrowing binge. But when they say they need to slash education investment to balance the books, what dumb spending are they leaving untouched? Which leaves the obvious question: why were these Tory sacred cows protected while public…
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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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Last week I put up some Sunday reading - longer, thoughtful pieces I'd found. I liked that other people also put up their links, with some very interesting topics. So I thought I might make it a regular feature. I'd put up a couple of…
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With everything else that the Nats are messing up at the moment, this little gem attracted surprisingly little attention: Government mulling ways to stop 'unfit' parents reproducing The Government is considering a range of hard-line measures to try and stop 'unfit' parents from having more…
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Great cartoon from Emmerson in The NZ Herald:
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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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In the middle of last century, conflicts turned on their head. Before, the object was to kill as many of the enemy as possible and parade the fact to break both their will and ability to fight. The US body-counts in Vietnam reflected this. But…
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The police have a number of different strategies for dealing with protest marches. Each has its own known likely result and the police choose their strategy depending on the desired outcome. Yesterday's mass arrests were not the police responding to something they did not expect…
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Hekia Parata this week became the fourth minister in three months to see her career reduced to tatters. Looks like she's planning a change - sixth member of My Chemical Romance. h/t JC In her latest fuck-up, Parata's spin doctors told reporters that she got…
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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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Tony Abbott fled from the Australian Parliament on Wednesday. He was trying to avoid his vote against a closure motion being recorded if newly independent Craig Thompson supported the Coalition. Watch it here - not a good look for a PM…
australian politics john key leadership Parliament vote smart
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Last week Bill English suggested that student protesters needed lessons from the Greeks in how to riot. I expected them to take the bait and up their game but it seems the police are taking lessons from the Greek Riot Police instead. In the last…
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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. Why does John Key appear so confident that we are not facing a future superannuation crisis? Young people are fleeing the country in such numbers…
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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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A tattered few on the Right are attempting to stir up an issue over the Greens using a bit of their leaders' office budget on the citizens'-initiated referendum petition. The use of the $78,000 is completely within the rules and approved by the Speaker. The…
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You know how, whenever someone points out that spending $12 billion on highways that make no economic sense makes even less sense when you consider that people are driving less because of the price of petrol and will only reduce their driving more in the…
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Things Key can't remember: His position on Springbok tour: subject of mass protests under his idol, Muldoon. His position on the anti-nuclear issue: cornerstone policy of 4th Labour government, triggered the schnapps election that brought down his hero. Things Key can remember: Never claiming the…
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Labour are pushing for an enquiry into how Treasury oversight of the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme was so poor that it has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. And fair enough. The Auditor-General and her Deputy have had separate reports, agreeing that it's cost…
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National has no choice but to call off the education cuts. The sooner they do it the sooner it will stop killing them in the court of public opinion. The education sector is united: Sector revolts against teacher cuts The Education Minister knew she had…
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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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Hekia Parata is demonstrating to the utmost the limitations of rote learning, and the way political lines endlessly repeated can go horribly wrong if you have nothing else to say. Her Polly Parrot repetitions are wrongly-based, and the longer she and Key go on about…
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Today is the last day for submissions to the MMP Review. If you haven't done so yet, make sure your have your say - it only takes 5 minutes for the short submission. If you're looking for ideas, I posted about my submission, and called…
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In the full knowledge that we've written about such reports before, and in the dreadful expectation that we'll be writing about them again, here is yet another shaming report on poverty in NZ: NZ poverty result 'appalling' - Labour ... The report, Measuring Child Poverty,…
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Labour's got its Auditor-General inquiry into Jones' approval of Yan's citizenship. We've seen this movie before. In a year, the report will recommend better procedures but nothing more. Jone will be reinstated. The politics is more important. Shearer's shown he has the power to control…
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Judith Collins has tried to go for a lower bar in her defamation suit against Andrew Little and Trevor Mallard to get it over with quicker. But asking for a declaration, rather than damages, doesn't reduce the legal test. There's just no way Collins is…
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Budgets allocate money not just for 1 year, but for the next 4. When National says its putting $511m into education, that's actually $128m a year over 4 years (less than inflation). So, it stands out like a sore thumb that National has promised to…