Jobs(.govt.nz) to Australia
Danyl at Dimpost has discovered that National is so serious about (enhancing) the drain of jobs and Kiwis to Australia that they’ve actually […]
Bunji
Hello everybody! Hi Dr Nick!
So Nick Smith is to be returned to cabinet after spending nearly a year on the bench for his ethical flaws. Presumably 10 months on the back benches heals all those desires to abuse your powers to try to help your friends get money.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. But this week it’s mainly your chance for you to share what you found this week, as I’m off overseas for a month by the time you read this.
Finlayson QC
So Chris Finlayson, Attorney General, finally managed to get his Bill through last month re-allowing the antiquated title of Queen’s Counsel to be conferred on lawyers again. The title is worth hundred of thousands in extra legal fees you can charge with your added prestige of having ‘taken silk’. Yesterday he had his first appointment to the title. It went to…
National’s 12 days of Christmas
Grant Robertson in the Christmas adjournment speeches yesterday gave a great list of National’s terrible 2012 gifts to Aotearoa. For the twelfth day […]
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere. This week: Tax-shaming and the real shirkers, climate change, disability month and happiness.
Wilson vs Heatley
“It’s as if you’re trying to make me cry”
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere. This week: Child poverty, malnutrition, austerity, Israel in the media and stoicism.
Stick to the Day Job
So Brownlee tried a Simpsons joke in the House and it completely failed. At least Gerry didn’t insult Finland with his ‘joke’ this time. Really I’d just like them to concentrate on running the country though. Once they’ve given us a Brighter Future, then they can start the comedy…
Cronyism
It appears that Murray McCully is up to his clique-ish ways again. He’s appointed his old mate, and Sky political lobbyist Tony O’Brien to the board of Antarctic New Zealand. What’s that you say? Lobbying doesn’t have much to do with our interests on the white continent and its surrounding waters? Neither does Pay TV?
In the UK…
The big story for the day is the likely change in press regulation as the Leveson Report on questionable media ethics is about to released. But the next couple of stories are also interesting with similar (unresolved) stories here this year: Minimum Price for Alcohol, and Caps on Payday Loans
Marketing Clown
There are some similar things between McDonald’s and New Zealand – they’re both currently run by a clown at any rate – but I didn’t think cynical marketing was one of them. Apparently Key is “lovin’ it” how our rivers and lakes are far from “100% Pure”.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere. This week: politicians, economies, elections, feminism and climate change.
Too much stupid; too little time
I don’t really have time to write something, but there’s just too much stupid this morning to let it pass. Nathan Guy heads today’s list, but Craig Foss, Tariana Turia, Bill English and Hekia Parata also need mention.
US election: live
Obama wins.
Stuck in a hotel room in the US, with cable TV, fast internet and not a lot else – I’ll keep you up to date with what’s happening. It’s been an incredibly negative campaign – $2.5 billion spent on the presidential race at last count, mostly on deriding the other guy. Still, the Oracle, Nate Silver has Obama at 91% odds to win. I’ll try and keep an eye on all the close races – because who controls the Senate and the House matter very much too.
An Ordinary New Zealander
So John Key had a very ordinary Friday apparently. Not only did he deride a kind international celebrity who took 45 minutes out of his day to spend time with his son as “thick as batshit,” he also was out there telling a radio host his shirt was “gay”. Just to show up how ordinary a New Zealander he is he went on to make a $10,000 bet on the stroke of a golf ball.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: inequality, language on social media, and feminism.
Key the Diplomat
The UK’s biggest daily newspaper’s lead about Britain’s favourite son today:
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: plutocrats, the New World Order, benefits and solving slavery and extinction.
In a dinnamic environment it’s hard to be precise
So apparently John Key failed to be “precise enough” when he said he voted for the drinking age to be 20, and actually voted for it to be 18. But then this is all the fault of opposition MPs being ‘pedantic’ with the fact that true doesn’t equal false.
Key’s mantra
Oversight
There are only 2 people protecting us from illegal spying: the Inspector-General with his staff of 1, and the Prime Minister. Therefore it is vital that the Prime Minister knows the law they are meant to be enforcing. They can’t know what they aren’t told, but when the GCSB tells him they were spying on a famous NZ resident, the PM should know that that’s illegal and act on it. Not wait to be briefed on the affair 7 months later.
White Wash Paper
Paula Bennett “can’t find the time” to appear on Morning Report this morning. The release of her White Paper on Vulnerable Children is – as she puts it – “one of the biggest and certainly most significant changes that will be in my time as minister.” So why doesn’t it include any action on Child Poverty? And why is she running from the hard questions? Our government ministers seem to have forgotten about accountability to the voting public.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: Obama the Tory, fish, Planet Key and the UK’s hit political single.
The Press on Standards
The Christchurch Press as part of Fairfax released National Standards data, but had a number of articles with a curiously sensible line on it: “…the standards’ main effects will be to impose on schools a crude, misleading and unhelpful form of accountability and to focus attention on learning targets that are inappropriate for many children.”
Cynical Key
So Key knew about the GCSB’s ‘unlawful’ actions for a week before he bothered to tell us. He happened to know that this Monday state owned companies would be announcing they were causing the loss of 500-600 jobs. Only one story would get its full due of airtime.
The losses keep coming
Welcome to National’s economy: Kiwirail has just announced 158 infrastructure and engineering job losses, and this afternoon Solid Energy will probably announce the loss of 300 jobs at Spring Creek, and 200-250 elsewhere. This on top of the swathe of job losses in Huntly and Christchurch Solid Energy announced a month ago.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: taxes and growth, foreign wars and the quality of MPs. And the Ig Nobels.
Standards slipping
So the first ‘ropey’ National Standards data is slipping out. It may not bear comparison, and not be moderated or indeed standardised, but Hekia Parata can now divulge the great wisdom that National’s StandardsTM provides.
You know your idea doesn’t work when…
You, the Prime Minister, have to write personally to 175 employers to implore them to pretty please take some of these boot camp kids so the scheme doesn’t look like quite as much of a failure as it is…
Jobs? In Oz…
I saw this story on Friday saying about how the number of jobs available on seek.co.nz is up. Paula Bennett and John Key regularly come up with stories about how many jobs there are out there – you only need to look at trademe or seek – but they don’t mention that…
Welfare ‘reform’
Paula Bennett’s second welfare changes bill is out – with a nasty added sting in the tail: anyone who refuses a ‘suitable’ job will be blocked from getting a benefit for 13 weeks. Work testing for sole parents with 5 year olds, compulsory ECE for beneficiaries and the widows benefit cut are all in there.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: torture, charter schools, economics and development.
Media: call it as it is
It’s a regular gripe of mine about our media that they don’t establish facts. I don’t find the “he said, she said” reporting style in the slightest bit helpful, and indeed encourages us, the public, to see all news as gossip and reduces our respect for our system.
So when John Key says that “John Banks hasn’t broken the law,” he’s lying: tell us that.
Sunday Reading
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: cars, the UK’s ‘Big Willy’ politics and Fear of a Black President. Oh, and laughter.
Trouble? Re-announce a distraction…
I see Paula Benefit is up to her old tricks again. As the government desperately wants to be doing something other than not attending huis over water rights, it’s up to Paula to pull a benefit bash. But she’s obviously run out of ideas so now we’re re-announcing the old bene-bashes.