After the horrifying attack on a 5-year old tourist in Turangi in December, Kiwis showed their compassion, and their shame, by donating over $62,000 to the family. Now, the family has said they don’t blame the community and have used some of the donations to fund children’s play equipment in Turangi and medical equipment for the children’s wing of Waikato hospital.
The Briefings to Incoming Ministers, which government departments produce after each election, give the public (via the media) an insight into on coming challenges in portfolios, elaborate on how election promises will be converted into real policies, and – most importantly – reveal things the government is planning that weren’t election policies. So, it’s disturbing that the Nats are censoring them.
Treasury has blown the dust off its 1980s economics textbooks and offered the same old failed prescription. Their moronic suggestion to cut education spending to finance tax cuts can be dismissed out of hand. But their suggestion of core Crown spending cuts has some merit; I know where we can get $75m that’s being spent on useless advice and incompetent forecasting.
Spot the difference: Mega-corporation with close ties to foreign dictatorship that has a policy of securing strategic resources buys swathes of New Zealand farmland after a bid by a company directly owned by the dictatorship was rejected. New Zealand public company to become the foreign company’s tenant. vs New resident in New Zealand buys farm.
The Maori Party is threatening to leave the government over the asset sales legislation removing the companies’ Treaty obligations. Key knows their threat is hollow. He just got away for 3 years of insulting Maori and worsening Maori statistics. Why would Sharples and Turia take a pay cut and lose their limos for their last few months working before retirement?
The same day as we learn that Labour won’t be allowing press gallery journos free access to their wing of Parliament as previously (apparently a desperate attempt at message control by keeping off message MPs and journos apart: someone better tell Fran Mold what a cellphone is), Labour’s bizarre cult of David Farrar has performed its first human sacrifice.
The tea tapes contain a pivotal exchange where John Banks and John Key talk about “restructuring” ACT – including Banks confirming his orders from Key to make Catherine Isaac the new leader. We also learn that National advisors called Key in a panic during the Brash coup calling on him to stage a snap election. It’s an insight into the cynicism of National and Key, and also Key’s poor political judgement.
David Farrar is calling for the Christchurch City Council to be sacked on the bizarre pretext that some of them have objected to the council CEO’s obscene pay rise. Apparently it’s a crime not to express confidence in your CEO if you’re an elected representative (Farrar seems to have missed the Collins-Matthews affair). But this is all a softening up exercise.
When he was running for re-election, John Key said he opposed selling the Crafar farms offshore: “I am concerned about the risk that New Zealanders become tenants in their own land”. Now he has won what is very likely his last term, he doesn’t give a damn about the farms going into foreign ownership and our publicly-owned farming company literally becoming the tenant of the land.
Headline – PM to Ratana: National has made a difference
Are Maori looking forward to another three years of Key’s ‘difference’?
National is letting children go to school hungry to try to teach their parents a lesson. Every fool knows the basic requirement for learning is food in the tummy. No decent person would turn their back on a hungry child. But Mike Sabin wants 20 children in his electorate to starve pour encourager les autres. And Paula Bennett has just cut the money that was feeding them.
National is quietly using its power to try to prevent programmes about important issues from being broadcast during election campaigns, after a documentary on childhood poverty upset them. When Key finally gets back from holiday, he’s got to explain why his party and government are trying to dictate what should be on TV during election campaigns.
Some have compared the Port of Auckland dispute to the 1890 waterfront dispute, 1913 general strike, and 1951 lockout. They want Labour and the Greens to get involved. Actually, this is no 1951 redux. The POA fight is just about one company trying to undercut another. The net effect on New Zealand is zero. The last thing the workers need is Labour creating an excuse for National to attack them.
The Productivity Commission reports that freight costs are 25% higher here than in Australia and freight costs as a % of cargo value has risen in recent years. Their solution? Make the public and port workers poorer by privatisation and casualisation. Of course, those are ideological goals, not solutions to the freight cost issue, which has nothing to do with ports.
Generating a false crisis to justify their ideological policies is a classic rightwing tactic. Key gravely pronounces the system is ‘broken’ and their policy is the solution. Education has been victim to this bullshit. But OECD stats show that we have the best value for money education in the world. How will National justify their ideological assault on teachers now?
After blissful isolation in the bush, it’s a shock to come back and read of more earthquakes, the government bullying the media, port workers having to strike to get an inflation-rate pay raise, more road deaths, and today’s balloon tragedy in Carterton. Not to mention government massacre in Kazakhstan and rising violence in Syria. Looks like 2012’s going to be another tough one.
In a heart-warming Christmas story, 111 workers have stood strong and faced down Canterbury Meat Packers, which locked them out for2 months to extort a 20% wage cut and make them work harder for less money. It’s not a total victory, there will be small pay cuts, but they won improved conditions and they’re back at work. United, workers win.
Irony will be if Anne Tolley gets sacked over a portfolio she no longer holds. And if she’s fired, not for turning one of the world’s most successful education systems into an ideological warzone over performance pay but, for lying to Parliament about a principal turned ministry expert with a sleazy husband being suspended.
Key: “Of course, if we could have lower personal taxes, we think that would stimulate the economy – but we just can’t afford it”. But, if tax cuts stimulate the economy, you could make them self-funding. The 2010 tax changes were meant to pay for their net cost with extra growth. Didn’t happen. They’ve cost $1.1b so far. Does Key still buy this trickle down garbage or not?
David Shearer’s brand is of a new kind of politician. Not burdened by the old rivalries, he is touted as the man that can move New Zealand forwards – a consensus-builder rather than a scarred old warrior. The weekend media coverage has been excellent. His Address in Reply this week will consolidate his brand. Here is what I would say if I were him.
Congratulations David Shearer, you’re leader of the Left now, and the prime target for the Right’s smear machine. The Right’s strategy is obvious: bait and switch. Having proclaimed Shearer’s virtues to high heaven, they (and their useful idiots) will now say ‘who is this man?’, try to frame unreasonable expectations, and try to beat up leadership rumours.
The new government comprises the same parties as the previous one: National, ACT, United Future, and the Maori Party but with 64 votes, not 69. The governing parties’ total vote fell from 51.84% to 50.41%. Even the narrower Nat+ACT bloc fell. National’s ‘big win’ was just one more seat. And the most powerful man in the country now? Peter Dunne.
Paula Bennett did pretty well in 2008, she won a seat that gave more party votes to Lab+Greens than Nat+ACT. But she was a bad MP. The electorate swung away from Nat+ACT and Bennett lost. But does she take it with grace? No she whines that Labour used “nasty and vicious” tactics like “mobilising the left” and getting out the vote on election day.
I have a theory that the Herald employs Shelley Bridgeman et al as columnists only because, while a relatively small team of monkeys on typewriters could spit out much more cogent and insightful pieces well within deadline, the price of bananas these days makes it more economical to fill the space between ads with whatever dross these ‘writers’ throw-up. But, I have an alternative that benefits everyone.
Charter schools and national standards/league tables are part of the same process. It’s about siphoning off public funds, the best pupils, and the best teachers into ‘elite’ schools, and leaving everyone else behind. It’s about cutting money for ‘failing’ schools and ‘failing’ students. It ultimately means more lost potential and a poorer NZ, but one that serves the elite’s interests.
“That’s MMP for you” John Key smugly proclaimed in justification of his charter schools policy. Apparently, it’s MMP’s fault that he chose to rort the system and then us the one ACT MP as an excuse for unmandated rightwing policies. But why are the Nats suddenly acting so haughty and pushing through unmandated policies? The answer is MMP.
National will pass a Spending Cap Bill, under the cover of its Confidence and Supply deal with John Banks. The question isn’t if this Bill is a farcical idea that would hurt NZ if ever enforced (which it wouldn’t be) – even the arch-neoliberals in Treasury oppose it. The question is why National has no better ideas for Parliament’s precious time.
David Cunliffe has said that, if he is Labour leader, he will look to buy back any assets National sells once he is PM. Under the existing Takeovers Code, that wouldn’t be too hard. But why not go a step further and make it clear to any potential investor that our energy sector won’t be their cash cow? A bit of regulatory reform would sink the assets’ share value.
In May, they were promising growth would be 4.2% in 2012. By October, it was 3.3%. November, 2.5%. December, 1.5% …. with ‘downside risks’ aplenty. Looks like we’re going to be waiting on that brighter future a while longer. Vernon Small points out there’s no way National’s going to keep its promise to get back into surplus in 2014. When will they tell the truth?
Ubiquitous Tory blonde #5 (Jo Goodhew?) was on Backbenches last night. At the factory where Nat backbenchers are stamped out, they’re programmed to say ‘John Key’ whenever possible. It went wrong, though, when Goodhew said she was proud to be a reelected member of the John Key Party. It was a slip that told the truth: National, and the Right, is now completely dependent on one man.
I’m calling it right now. This is last election where the Maori Party’s will return MPs. It has gone from 5 to 3 MPs, 2 of whom are retiring this term, and the survivors have had their majorities slashed (on the back of scandalously low turnouts). Turia and Sharples will take the baubles again, which will just be the final nails in the party’s coffin.
The Greens can be very proud of their achievement this election. With 13, probably to become 14, seats, they have achieved the second-best ever result for a minor party under MMP. They have succeeded in becoming credible to mainstream New Zealand. What they do next carries big risks and big potential rewards.
76% of Kiwis are against National’s plan to sell our assets. We know it just doesn’t make sense. We know privatisation leads to higher prices, under-investment, asset-stripping, and profits going overseas rather than into public services. Make no mistake: the only way to stop asset sales is to vote Green, Mana, Labour, or New Zealand First.
We’ve been getting links to this song for a week or two. Wish I’d gotten round to posting it earlier. Just fantastic.
Hiding in his mansion/While half the population flies across the Tasman/The other half try to act like it’s not happening
There’s no depression in New Zealan’/ Just a slow sinking feelin’
John Key said last night the Nats has boosted Police numbers by 600. In fact, 2008, Police numbers have grown by only 442, 5.4%, barely more than population growth. All but 80 of those extra cops came in the 2008/09 year – under Labour’s last budget. Cops per capita has fallen in the last two years. No wonder there are more unsolved crimes.
