It was heartbreaking this morning to read of the worsening conditions in Christchurch’s poor suburbs, where damage assessments are only just now being done and aftershocks are accumulating more and more problems on already vulnerable communities. So, this picture sent in by a reader caused a bit of a bemused smile (click title for big version).
John Key promised higher standards of government. Another lie. The list of rorts, incompetences, and abuses of power goes on and on. So, it’s hardly any surprise that Key doesn’t have a problem with Maurice Williamson’s racist comments. Make no mistake – it is Key’s decision that Williamson and the rest are ministers in our government
Days before accusing us of being racist for not wanting more of New Zealand’s land to fall under foreign control, Maurice Williamson was making racist jokes. Is it OK in John Key’s government for ministers to get pissed and tell racist jokes in public?
It’s a little disturbing to hear Te Ururoa Flavell saying that the Maori Party isn’t really satisfied with National’s new foreshore and seabed bill but will vote for it for now and will re-negotiate a new deal in the future. He’s dreaming. Both major parties have every incentive to consider the issue closed. With the Maori Party supporting the law, it will be seen as a full and final settlement.
I didn’t want to be the first to say it. Since John Armstrong now has, I will ask the question too: why the hell is the John Key planning to go for a holiday weekend with the Queen and a chat with his carbon-copy David Cameron when our second-largest city is a disaster zone? It seems he doesn’t appreciate the responsibilities of his job and just wants to be Minister for Overseas Holidays.
Almost as an aside, Matt McCarten has announced that he has the “killing kind of cancer” in his column today. Matt is one of the lions of the Left. His union, Unite, has defied the skeptics to become a real success story. Temp and low-paid workers have found an avenue for collective action, and learnt they can win. Matt makes it clear he’ll never flinch from fighting for the workers. Good on ya, mate, we’re with you.
Many argue English should never have extended the deposit guarantee to South Canterbury Finance in April, or question whether the terms of the guarantee called for the pay-out. Then there’s the stink around the payment of SCF bonds. One thing’s for sure, the Nats didn’t need to spend $20 million on foreign depositors – they did it to try to kill the issue faster. Plenty of meat for Labour. Will they bite?
Self-styled ‘Jokemeister-in-chief’ John Key has been selected from a host of eager clowns, buffoons, and slapstick artists (known as the National Party) to perform for Queen Elizabeth the Second for a weekend next month. Asked if he has any nerves ahead of the big show, Key whipped out his old catchphrase saying “nah, I’m pretty relaxed”.
It is time we got away from Mr Key’s focus on individual greed and got back to a focus on better hospital, schools and care for those who are struggling. David Clark argues that Key’s tax cuts are going to actually drive away our high-achievers while Mr Key is telling us it’s going to bring them home.
Heather Smith, the pharmacy worker who was sacked unfairly under the 90 day fire at will law and featured in a recent advert for the campaign has won a CTU-backed case against her employer in the Employment Court.
I see Kris Faafoi’s been given the nod from the Goffice to have a crack at Mana. He’s always struck me as a decent and hardworking bloke, so I wouldn’t want anyone to take this as an attack on him personally, but isn’t it a little worrying how many of Labour’s new recruits are being parachuted in from the leader’s office?
Prime Minister John Key has credited his government’s economic policies for the price of fruit and vegetables falling by 6.5%. It’s clearly because of all those fruit and vegetable price reduction policies the government has introduced. In fact, the fruit price index is really only down 3.9% since November 2008 and vegetables are actually up 14.4%. But who are you going to believe?
In the Treasury asset sale papers we released earlier this week, a key word is blanked out again and again. It is the name given for a group of SOEs in a series of slides on reforming the SOE sector. One can only presume that this list is the group of SOEs that the Government will be seeking to sell, if it can find a way to dupe the public first.
The government’s alcohol reforms are so typical of this government: criminalise someone to be seen to be doing something, while ignoring the root causes of the problem. This is a government that would rather make a criminal of a good parent who lets their son’s mate have a beer at a BBQ than make it harder for booze barons to hook kids into drinking.
For the last few months, the Standard has been politely asking Treasury for their papers on the sale of Crown assets. To say they weren’t keen to share would be an understatement. We’ve managed to get a few papers of the papers, more are being withheld. These papers show what we’ve long suspected: the Government plans to force SOEs to issue bonds as a method of privatisation by stealth.
Registrar of Pecuniary Interests Margaret Bazley, the country’s busiest pensioner, has presented recommendations for improving the transparency of MPs’ financial interests. It seems like good stuff, but it ignores the elephant in the room – the ability of MPs to use trusts to hide their shareholdings, and their conflicts of interest, from the public.
Wayne Mapp has confirmed that the SAS has been involved in handing prisoners over to the NDS – a Afghan government body that tortures prisoners. Mapp indicated he didn’t give a damn what happens to the prisoners, calling them an “Afghan responsibility”. Sorry, Mapp, but you’ve got to take responsibility. Handing someone over to people you can reasonably expect will torture them is illegal.
In his ‘Key Notes’ this week, John Key claims that sending a handful of the business elite overseas to get MBAs will boost the economy. Seriously, 350,000 jobless Kiwis and the plan Key is bragging about is a million dollars worth of subsidies for the business elite as the solution to our woes? What a sick joke this government is. And it’s being played by the rich on the rest of us.
It just gets worse: “The Government has rejected a secret forum’s recommendation that 10 women who alleged sexual misconduct by police officers get reparation.” Sadly, I think this is just the Nats being cheap and unwilling to face their responsibilities. They don’t care about the victims of police abuse, they care about saving a few dollars to pay for tax cuts.
Rapturous crowds of workers from the People’s Information Services spontaneously gathered in the Beehive theatrette yesterday to praise Beloved Leader of People’s Constitutional Monarchy of New Zealand, Honourable John Key, on the anniversary of his birth. “Comrades! I thank you!” said Honourable Key to the sighs of the crowd. One young cadre presented Beloved Leader with a birthday card.
When National rammed through the first version of the 90 day fire at will law it claimed the period would be a ‘choice’ negotiated fairly between employees and employers.
Now employers are advertising it as a precondition in job ads, with the Minister backing them all the way.
Last night National and ACT voted down Grant Robertson’s ethical investment bill on the basis that “the market” would somehow solve the problem.
You can imagine what these people would have said about slavery at the time of the Civil War.
Kiwis are amongst the highest consumers of bananas per capita in the world but for decades the banana industry has had a record […]
John Key’s description of student debt as ‘dangerous’ is just the latest broadside from National against interest-free student loans.
But the real problem here isn’t who pays off the interest on student debt, it’s that we have a system that causes such debt to be created in the first place.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has lifted the official cash rate from 2.75 to 3 per cent, while expressing concerns about the weakness of New Zealand’s economic recovery.
The Herald reports that Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union members have won the right to a substitute holiday to make up for the fact that Anzac Day and Easter Monday fall on the same day this year as well as a three percent pay rise for this year and another next year.
You read that right, at a time when the government is attacking workers rights two thousand EPMU members are increasing their holidays and getting a pay rise.
Disgraceful to see that National and Act have voted down Carol Beaumont’s moderate and sensible bill to take action against loan sharks.
All we got from National was weak spin and misdirection, while they sat there and committed to doing nothing. The result will be more Kiwis getting ripped off and abused.
Good to see John Key’s lies over the 90 day fire at will law are starting to catch up with him. An employment specialist has come out contradicting Key’s smug assurances that even though his fire at will law will explicitly remove our right to even be given a reason why we’re getting the sack, somehow good faith provisions would still require the employer the give one.
No Right Turn has a good post pointing out that John Key’s petty fascism on sick leave is already covered by the law. An employer can demand a worker provide a medical certificate after one day’s sick leave. All Key’s law change will do is remove the requirement for our employers to behave reasonably when we’re sick.
Does John Key have any evidence or official advice to back up his claim that taking away workers’ rights to basic fairness and natural justice promotes growth? Will Kiwi workers be as a result of taking away our job security and bargaining power?
“Major festival events linked to the 2011 Rugby World Cup could be shifted to Wellington because of Auckland’s party central fiasco, Government sources say.” – Tracy Watkins
Wait, “Auckland’s party central fiasco”? It was John Key who came up with the term, and forced the councils into the Queens Wharf site. But the media are happy to let him wriggle out of responsbility again.
Newspaper and magazine readerships continue to plummet despite the end of the recession. The biggest falls are the major newspapers. The Herald has shed 92,000 readers since 2005. The Sunday-Star Times lost 90,000 readers (15%!) last year alone. It’s got to the point where they literally can’t give the SST away.
Labour’s lineup for the next election is emerging, the usual balance between continuity and new talent. There will be some interesting electorate selections coming up. Such personality politics is always very popular of course, but more important than the people is the policy…
